Texas church chooses ADJ LED systems
- Details
A former paramedic/firefighter who then spent 10 years working in the oil and gas industry, Wes Akin felt a sense of calling to serve others again and began volunteering as the technical director at Athens First. Over time this simultaneously led to a full-time role at the church, overseeing business and operations, and a rekindling of his passion for technical production. Wes founded Gain Stage Productions to offer live audio and visual services to local venues as well as to provide installation services for churches in the area.
Wes’ first project was to design and install the audio and lighting system for Athens First’s new contemporary worship centre, which was created by renovating the church’s old fellowship hall. After meeting over coffee and donuts, members of the congregation now have two choices: a contemporary service in the new worship space or a more traditional service in the main sanctuary.
For the new contemporary venue, Wes designed a system that would offer a great deal of flexibility while also giving a very modern feel to the relatively small space. He also purposely selected all LED-powered fixtures, both to minimize future maintenance requirements and to keep the power bills down.
To achieve the contemporary looks of sweeping beams and other aerial effects that he wanted, Wes needed moving heads on the new rig. But due to the low ceiling height and a tight budget, he also needed fixtures that were both compact and offered exceptional value for money. He found what he was looking for in the ADJ Focus Series, selecting six Focus Spot Twos and a further four Focus Spot Ones.
“The Focus Spot Ones and Twos have a lot of punch and, for the size of room, they are plenty bright enough,” confirms Wes. “I have a lot of LED pars backlighting the stage that they are fighting against, but the movers don’t have any trouble at all punching through. The Focus Spot Twos can be used to spotlight performers from behind and for nice aerial effects and the Focus Spot Ones on the risers are great for beam sweeps and shooting GOBOs up behind the frontline performers. The two fixtures definitely complement each other well set up in this way.”
Backlighting is provided by ADJ’s 5PX HEX and 12PX HEX par fixtures, which feature five and twelve 12W 6-in-1 hex LEDs, respectively. Four of each model are rigged to the rear truss, while an additional eight 12PX HEX units are floor mounted at the back of the stage to up-light the rear wall.
Another four 5PX HEX units are rigged above the stage on a central truss and are used to light the backline musicians. This truss is also home to four of ADJ’s Dotz Par 100 100-Watt COB LED wash fixtures, which are used to downlight the frontline singers. Finally, an additional four 12PX HEX units provide front color wash for the stage, while key lighting is covered by a pair of ADJ’s Par Z Move fixtures.
The light beams on stage are enhanced by haze from an ADJ Entour Venue, while control of the whole system is covered by ADJ’s myDMX 3.0 software. The trussing is all from Global Truss and all the DMX cables are from the Accu-Cable range, meaning that absolutely everything was sourced from the ADJ Group of Companies.
