Historic Church Renovates with New Lighting Technology
Located in Edmond, OK, Henderson Hills Baptist Church is nestled among the trees and rolling hills in the region. With a history that dates back to December 1959, HHBC has expanded to serve its growing congregation over the decades. The church’s members moved into their present, more spacious facility on April 25, 2004.
Recently, the church opted to renovate the lighting in their worship center, contracting with Barbizon for the upgrade. And while HHBC’s director of media arts, Michael Scott, is quick to note that the services at Henderson Hills Baptist Church aren’t likely to be confused for a beam-and-smoke-filled rock ‘n’ roll concert, Barbizon installed more than two dozen state-of-the-art entertainment lighting fixtures along with a full array of conventional fixtures. The new technology: High End Systems’ SolaSpot 1500 and SolaSpot CMY Pro moving lights.
The Timeline
Scott explains the timeline and scope of the renovation. “Our facility is eleven and a half years old, and, from a technical standpoint, we knew several years ago that it was time for a lighting upgrade,” he says. “From a budgeting standpoint, it took a while to get things going, but we were finally able to get that going for summer of 2015.
“Back in February, we decided to attend the PLASA Focus regional event in Orlando, Florida,” Scott adds. “We already kind of had a number in mind for the budget, and we checked out all the big vendors’ fixtures to get a feel for what they could do. We stopped by High End Systems’ booth and saw the SolaSpot. That’s when the SolaSpot line was fairly new — neither of us were familiar with it — but we were very intrigued and interested.”
“After we were home from the show we set up a demo shootout,” Scott continues. “We work with Barbizon, and Chris Boyd is our contact. The shootout included the SolaSpot fixtures along with several other automated lighting manufacturers’ products. After we looked at the features of each product, we decided that between the two SolaSpot fixtures — the 1500 and the CMY Pro — that’s the way we wanted to go.
“By late March we had our decisions on moving lights and started to put our system proposal together,” Scott adds. “There were lots of other components that went into it — it was a entire system upgrade, from a fixture standpoint, but we didn’t replace any infrastructure. We replaced all of our conventional fixtures, and then bought several LED PARs and strips, but from a moving light standpoint we were set at that point.”
For the new moving light component, Barbizon installed 16 SolaSpot CMY Pro fixtures and 10 SolaSpot 1500s.
Clinching the Deal
Scott details some of the attributes that helped clinch the decision to go with the SolaSpots after the shootout with rival fixtures. “The light output was incredibly flat across the entire field. The colors are fantastic. And with the CMY flags in the CMY Pro, we’ve greatly expanded our color capabilities and overall performance options,” he notes. “We also particularly like the shapers in the SolaSpot 1500s. We really wanted to have some fixtures with shapers in the room. At the time, this was the only fixture with shapers and an LED engine.”
“The gobo rotation in both fixtures is amazing,” Scott continues. “We can get to an incredibly slow gobo rotation that is perfectly smooth, and with other fixtures when we got them to their slowest point it was jumpy, so that smoothness and slow rotation is very important in the church market. You can get a ton of little subtle things from these lights, and that was a big point for us. The light output from the 1500 is just incredible, and we love the feature set of both fixtures.”
Barbizon installed the ten SolaSpot 1500s out at house positions. “We use those fixtures for accent lighting on our walls, and we can backlight the entire congregation of the room with just those ten fixtures,” Scott explains. “We can have various looks coming off of the stage out into the house, and in a pinch we can use them for front light specials if we don’t have time to focus conventional fixtures.
“The 16 SolaSpot CMY Pros are in our lighting grid above the stage for backlight, texture and color on stage and those sort of effects,” Scott continues, noting how the services don’t deviate from church traditions as much as other contemporary worship environments.
“We’re not a rock concert church, as in we don’t do concert lighting in our services, but I’m very big on the use of color and texture in what we do, and these fixtures have given us the flexibility to do that,” Scott notes. “We do three services each weekend, but they’re identical visually — we don’t do multiple styles, which is one thing our leadership really values. We’re not looking for ‘flash n’ trash,’ we’re looking for reliability and ease of use. We need consistency from service to service, and the ability to express our creativity without drawing attention to the lighting.”
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Technology Focus
HES SolaSpot LED Fixtures
Upon their introduction, High End Systems’ SolaSpot Pro CMY fixtures ushered in a new era of CMY color control power in an LED-based hard-edged fixture, outputting over 13,000 lumens from a 320W LED source. Touted by HES as the first LED instrument capable of replacing 700W arc fixtures, the Pro CMY’s feature set is extensive — fixed and CMY colors, speedy zoom and focus, linear CTO, two gobo wheels, prism, iris and frost.
The newest fixture in the range, the SolaSpot Pro 1500, emits 20,000 lumens using a 400W LED engine for even more LED brightness. Other key features include framing shutters, CMY color mixing, linear CTO, two gobo wheels, animation effects, a prism, an iris, frost and an 8° to 45° zoom range.
Both fixtures in the range include new High End Systems patents, such as their lens defog system and thermal protection patents, which help ensure that the fixtures consistently operate at their peak ability.
The fixtures are also being lauded for their flat and even field of light — an absence of dark spots around the edges, or hot spots in the center of the beams. And their ability to apply textures to the scenery and audience is part of their look — a key part of the appealing looks that Henderson Hills Baptist Church has been able to offer for its weekly services. —TSF
