The Netherlands - Grote Kerk (Big Church) in Apeldoorn was the unlikely venue for two recent dance parties hosted by ABNØRMAAL Events. The team from production company RJ Showequipment overcame significant challenges – including complex logistics and a tight budget – to deliver impressive production for the event. Utilising ADJ’s powerful and feature-packed Focus Profile and Vizi Beam 12RX moving heads, they created a high-tech dance club atmosphere while simultaneously using lighting to highlight the ornate décor of the historic venue.
One of the most significant examples of neo-Renaissance church architecture in the Netherlands, Apeldoorn’s Grote Kerk was constructed in the late 1800s. It remains a place of Christian worship but is also used to host concerts and other cultural events open to the public.
Electronic Music promoter ABNØRMAAL Events was the first organisation to use the venue for a dance event when they hosted their inaugural In De Kerk party last year. This proved such a success that this year’s instalment was expanded to two nights, featuring house and hard house on Friday, followed by techno and hard techno on Saturday, both attracting capacity crowds.
The responsibility for transforming this historic building into a modern nightclub environment – including video projection, audio, special effects and lighting – fell to local production company RJ Showequipment, whose team deployed a number of ADJ fixtures from their rental inventory.
“Our biggest challenge on this project was that – because of the nature of the building – we couldn’t hang anything from the ceiling,” explains Robin Johannesma, owner of RJ Showequipment and production manager for the event. “Therefore, we designed a rig that was fully ground stacked, using a central circular truss cage and two freestanding truss towers to rig our moving heads.
“We utilised two ADJ fixtures, which are staples of our rental inventory, the Vizi Beam 12RX and Focus Profile, which is the largest moving head we have in stock. It’s a really powerful and versatile fixture that we love to work with. Especially for this kind of event – in a venue with such a large, high ceiling – it can zoom out really wide and still generate crisp gobo projections. We also utilised its framing shutters to highlight the church’s grand pipe organ at certain moments, which was very effective.
“With the Focus Profile we were able to project wide gobo patterns to fill the whole ceiling but we could also zoom them into a very narrow beam, creating a pin spot effect to hit the mirror ball,” adds Rik Keja, RJ Showequipment’s in-house lighting designer. “We used them a lot for the breakdowns to create atmospheric static looks as well as for dynamic moving effects, flying beams in, out and around the dancefloor. The gobos are great on the unit and suitable for both aerials and projection, which gives lots of flexibility.”
The other model of moving head utilised for the event was ADJ’s popular Vizi Beam 12RX. Eight of these units were deployed in sets of four at the top of the truss towers which flanked the DJ position.
“The Vizi Beam 12RX is extremely fast and has a narrow beam, which makes it a high impact unit,” comments Rik. “I used it to shoot beams right from the front to the back of the church, creating impressive aerial effects, as well as to provide another source for hitting the mirror ball. Its two prism options and motorized focus made for some very cool effects, which the pictures from the event capture. It is the perfect partner to the Focus Profile, because the two fixtures complement each other very well.”
In addition to the moving heads, RJ Showequipment utilised a pair of ADJ’s compact yet powerful 7P HEX IPLED par fixtures to illuminate the ornate table at the front of the church which served as a DJ booth. Two more of the fixtures were also used outside the church to light a food court area. Finally, a pair of ADJ’s LED-illuminated Fog Fury Jett Pro fog machines were mounted between the moving heads on the truss towers, pointing out towards the dancefloor.
“The other challenge we faced was the budget,” concludes Robin. “Although the church is huge, it has lots of fixed bench seating, so the area available for dancing is limited, which reduced the event’s capacity and in turn the budget. We had to be strategic with our fixture selection as we couldn’t use the quantity of lights we’d normally want to in such a large space. The combination of just eight Focus Profiles and eight Vizi Beam 12RXs – used creatively – was enough to fill the space with a variety of impressive effects.”
