Persinger felt the need to help churches that had bought into new technology and were basically left without a prayer when it came to honest communication about the cost of fixing, designing, installing, servicing, supporting, consulting and training. In 2000, he would offer all those services — nationwide — by forming his company, Vivid Illumination, in Nashville, TN.
PLSN asked Persinger about his experiences over the years with the house of worship market trends. What are common challenges of church lighting design? Are mega-churches still on the rise? What equipment are they specifying? How are churches upgrading with new technology? Persinger shed light on the subject for us. Let’s start with his background.
PLSN: How did you get into lighting?
Greg Persinger: While taking a technical theater course at Northeast Missouri State University — which is now Truman University — I lit my first main stage show. It turned out great, and I was hooked. From then on, I wanted to do a tour and be a lighting guy. At that time, I really didn’t know what that meant, but that became my new goal.
After college, I lit sets on an ABC television affiliate in Missouri, and worked my way up as the station’s production manager. When I was ready to get out of TV and move into lighting, it meant moving to a production hub. I chose Nashville, as I loved the area. Tim Ranson at Delta Stage Lighting was kind enough to hire me to help do a lighting install for Christian TV’s Trinity Broadcasting Network. Tim respected me for my TV background. The install was a success, and I learned a lot from Tim and his staff.
Why did you focus on church lighting?
I started out focusing on concert lighting. When I first moved to Nashville, I toured with Reba McEntire, Brooks & Dunn and Duran Duran, and also did corporate shows. However, Delta Stage Lighting was providing production in the contemporary Christian music scene: concert tours, music videos, events, church installs. I didn’t know Christian shows even existed; however, as a active church-going Christian, I thought it was cool.
The catalyst to help churches came in 2000. I was the lighting designer for the Fernando Ortega Home tour, which played a myriad of churches. We were carrying only a few moving lights, while the church we were playing in had 40 moving fixtures hanging in the ceiling. I thought I had hit the jackpot and was going to see if I could use some of their fixtures to augment my show. When I asked the church’s technical director if I could use some of his lighting fixtures, he hung his head and said he wished he could let me.
Although the church was only a little over a year old, only one of the 40 moving fixtures worked. The lighting company handling the design and installation never told the church they needed to regularly service the lights.
As the lights were hanging 50 feet above the floor, over pews, this was a problem. There was no catwalk for access, instead each light was hanging on a short lighting pipe. This meant the only way to access the lights was to build a 45-foot-tall scaffolding tower.
Additionally, each fixture used a $250 lamp, so the cost to re-lamp the 40 fixtures was $10,000, not including labor, and this needed to be done every six to eight months. So after spending about $500,000 on the lighting installation, they discovered they needed to spend $30,000 a year in maintenance.
This church — like many other churches, schools, and theaters — was sold on the merits of the system without having all of the costs and potential issues disclosed to them by the company that built the system.
On the Fernando Ortega tour, there were two things I heard repeatedly: “I wish we could have lighting like you are doing for the tour in our church,” and, “We spent all this money on our lighting system, and it still doesn’t work.”
Because of these two statements, in 2000, I changed the focus of my work. I opened Vivid Illumination as a lighting design and consulting firm with the goal of helping both amateurs and professionals improve the quality of their presentations through better lighting design, lighting practices and training.
What’s the most common misconception churches have regarding installing production technology?
That “production runs itself. Anyone can push buttons and make it go.” This is so far from the truth. You can set things up so they can push the buttons and make the systems run, but it requires people with a skill set to create a beautiful artistic work. I “grew up” watching programmers like Kille Knobel, Arnold Serame, Susan Rose, Alex Reardon and Seth Jackson, all of whom are incredible designers.
When I first started in 1994, you had to prove you had talent to get your hands on a moving light console. Most moving light systems were proprietary, expensive and not everyone was privileged to be a programmer. Today, if you have a couple thousand dollars in your pocket, you can own moving lights and a console.
What are the most common church challenges?
Rigging and power. Most churches I repeatedly work with have installed permanent rigging points and road disconnects. There are still those events where we need an electrician to put in a temporary electrical feed or bring in a generator and we end up ground supporting the lighting rig.
From a people standpoint, the challenge is the Worship Pastor. Many times a Worship Pastor wants little nit-picky things changed in the programming — things I don’t mind doing, but all things that take time. I will make any changes they want as long as they sit with me and make sure I am getting the changes correct as I program. Usually, they are gone in two hours. I’m not trying to get out of making changes, but trying to make them understand what it takes. Then they prioritize the changes each day to maximize programming time.
What’s happening in the mega-church trend?
Mega churches were on the rise until about 2008 when the bottom dropped out of the economy. It became expensive to build big buildings. Now the trend is satellite campuses. Some have a campus pastor that preaches, but many of these watch a video feed of the main pastor broadcast from the main campus.
Are there many churches installing production technology for the first time, or are most now on the next wave of upgrading?
Many churches are upgrading to new technologies, especially LED, but even more traditional churches are adding production elements because they are so common in our society. With the number of concerts that people go to, they know what good sound and good lighting is. They watch the Emmys and Grammys at home in HD with surround sound. Most people think they should have it in their church to be relevant.
Over the last 10 years, production has become cost effective to own. It used to be that if you could see and hear the pastor, even if he sounded like he was preaching on a bad AM radio, it was good. Poor production doesn’t cut it anymore.
What would be a good example of a “before and after” church transformation that you have been involved with?
One of the best projects I have done in recent times was Indian Hills Community Church in Lincoln, NE. It was a remodel, and we took their church from a late 1970s-early-1980s traditional church to a very modern, classy look, while still maintaining a conservative church vibe. While the project has a lot of color, it isn’t over-the-top contemporary.
Of course, the results didn’t come from just what I did. Instead, it was a great team of architects, engineers, carpenters, electricians, vendors and installers, as well as the church staff and members themselves, that made it all happen.
What are the equipment trends in church upgrades?
LED fixtures with full color mixing are a hot seller; it gives you versatility as well as the huge selling point of energy savings and lower maintenance costs.
Many churches stream their services over the Internet. New affordable streaming services, better compression codecs requiring less upload bandwidth, and better quality Pan Tilt Zoom cameras (PTZ cameras, or camera robotics) are making it affordable.
Blackmagic has a huge hold on the church market with their ATEM live production switcher and their SSD video recorders.
ProPresenter is an interesting piece of lyric and media presentation software made by Renewed Vision, a company formed by guys who went to church at North Point Community Church in the Atlanta area. They wrote the ProPresenter software because they didn’t like Powerpoint; they thought they could make a better presentation software for church and the live presentation market. Today not only do I see ProPresenter in most churches, but also on almost every corporate show I do. It’s a testament to how nice the software is.
How does your specified equipment differ between televised and theatrical drama events?
Many times, it’s what I can get the most bang for the buck out of the local production house, especially if it is not being televised. I work closely with rental companies to maximize the rig. For TV, I need a lighting rig that is camera friendly, flicker free, LED fixtures. I spec a lot of Vari-Lites.
I’m used to making a show out of whatever gear I get sent or can find. Sometimes all the local guy has is DJ-grade gear. Sometimes there is budget for trucking in gear, other times not.
How are you using video?
Mostly, it’s a combination of I-Mag, video playback that goes along with the story or song, and song/worship lyrics.
How do you deal with fog or haze?
In some churches, hazing the room is considered too showy; they don’t want a rock concert look. Other churches welcome haze; they want the beam looks you can only get by using a hazer.
Most churches have smoke detectors and no method of disabling them has been included in the fire alarm system. It’s a big ordeal to work through the process with the church administration, building guy, fire marshal, and the alarm company to do it right and disable the smoke detectors while keeping audience safety in mind.
I can’t tell you how many churches have told me their answer to hazing the room was to completely turn off the alarm system. I hate hearing this.
I have also worked in buildings where I was told the alarm was taken care of, but we ended up evacuating mid-show. If I had $100 for every time I’ve been told a hazer won’t set off their smoke detectors, I would be a rich man.
Are you bringing in truss, or attaching gear to existing architectural elements?
Some churches want truss for a contemporary look. Some need it because of their building structure. Traditional churches are conscious about the aesthetic; they want gear hidden.
A best example of this was, as I explained, that we could build a soffit around the lighting hang position to hide the back and bottom of the lights. I was then asked why we couldn’t just build a wall in front of the light as well, then it would be completely hidden. The person asking was dead serious about it, not thinking about the light coming out of the front of the [fixture]. Most people aren’t put off by seeing production as long as it is neatly done and is a clean-looking install.
You provide lighting seminars, training, and educational programs for churches.
Usually the people I am training are complete amateurs — some have never touched a lighting console, so the console manual with all of the industry jargon doesn’t make any sense to them. You have to start with the beginning basics. For those who are more advanced, I’m usually helping them refine looks for video.
Typically, churches with staff well versed in lighting might bring me in for a system design for a retrofit or a new building. They know what they want, I just translate it into electrical and structural drawings for construction.
For more on Vivid Illumination, go to www.vividillumination.com.
