After trying to add isolated fixtures "here and there", McCullough decided something more had to be done, so he journeyed to the WFX conference seeking expert advice. He found it in the person of Greg Persinger of Vivid Illumination. What resulted was not only a new lighting system anchored by a collection of Chauvet Professional fixtures, but an expanded and more impactful role for the church in its community.
"I went to WFX Dallas in October 2014 and attended a breakout session on lighting that Greg was leading," recalled McCullough. "Greg shared his heart for serving churches and teaching, which led me to connect with him. We started communicating about Getwell Road and its lighting needs in December."
Persinger removed all of the old fixtures, old rigging, and ripped out all of the old electrical distribution. He then installed new rigging and hang positions, new electrical distribution and new fixtures at Getwell Road. "The only thing from the original system is a 24-channel ETC Sensor rack, and in that we replaced all but eight channels of dimming with 16 channels of relay control to power all of the new LED fixtures," said Persinger. "The only thing not LED in the system are the house lights, and there is a design to convert them to LED in the future."
After laying a new foundation for the church's lighting system, Persinger installed a collection of fixtures that would not only make the stage more pleasing to the eye with a flat even field of light, courtesy of a collection of Ovation Fresnels, but would also add extra color and movement to the Getwell Road stage.
The new lighting system at Getwell consists of 10 Ovation F-165WW Fresnels, seven Rogue R2 Wash moving fixtures, six COLORado 1-Quad Tour par style fixtures, nine COLORdash Batten-Quad 12 fixtures and eight COLORdash Par-Quad 18s.
Running his rig on a Jands Vista and an S1 controller, McCullough relies on the movement and intense output of the Rogue R2 Washes to create added energy during youth events and contemporary services. "Our worship services are more contemporary in style compared to other churches in our denomination," he said. "If we had more traditional services, I'm sure our lighting decisions would be subtly different. With the current trends in lighting technology, there is so much more we can add to enhance our services, whether they are contemporary or traditional."
(Jim Evans)
