LightParts’ LED Upgrade Gives the Church a Win-Win
Victory World Church held their first official service in 1990 with just seven people in attendance. By bridging the gap between cultures and generations through a multi-cultural and multi-generational worship experience, the congregation now averages 12,000 a week at the Norcross, Georgia campus alone. While the church does not broadcast their services, they do webcast to a weekly audience upwards of 6,500 and their two other Atlanta-area campuses.
Founding Pastors Dennis and Colleen Rouse enhance this worship experience with a large emphasis on music and production values to represent the artists on stage. Led by executive pastor Montell Jordan and Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter Crystal Nicole, Victory Worship has a host of dedicated singers, songwriters, musicians and volunteers who currently serve in worship throughout various ministries.
Lighting Up the Talent
The church recently upgraded the lighting system in their main facility with lighting fixtures and gear from LightParts, Inc. to better serve this purpose. The installation, specified by Victory’s staging and lighting director Charlie Pike, represents a major leap in production technology for the diverse house of worship.
“With this system,” says Pike,” I can do that talent justice in presenting them to the congregation.”
Pike came to Victory World Church after ten years of owning his own production lighting company, in Virginia. Primarily, he did corporate ballroom meetings throughout the U.S. There came a time in his life when he felt a call to focus his talents towards ministry work, so he sold all his assets and posted his resume on churchstaffing.com. Down to his last few dollars, Victory called him in for an interview and hired him three years ago.
He had his work cut out for him, he explains. “The rig I inherited was a large contingent of moving heads, which needed constant attention. I was forever parking fixtures pointed at the ceiling because I could not lamp them off or shutter them closed.”
Pike notes that the church “decided to invest in a new lighting system, and asked me to come up with a plan, which my peers and friends in the industry vetted. I put it out to bid, and LightParts won the lion’s share of that bid.
“We were invited by LightParts to visit High End’s facility, and from that relationship in Austin, we knew we had found the right partners for this renovation,” adds Pike, who benefitted from his wealth of experience working in the field of live entertainment production and the relationships he developed with vendors.
“Fortunately, we have a very vision-forward-thinking executive team,” Pike says, which includes Nathan Williams, the church’s technical director. In the church world, the TD is in charge of all production technology and teams in the church. Nathan is also the FOH audio engineer.
“When they built this church, they may not have had a big lighting rig or production, but they had vision,” Pike continues. “We have a fly loft, not in the sense of a traditional theater fly rail system, but one with a 60-foot trim height and a mother grid.” Additional truss hangs from the grid, providing access to the entire system from the floor.
The Main Sanctuary Setup
Sixteen SolaWash Pro 2000 and 16 SolaSpot Pro 1500 fixtures play a big part in the new package in Victory’s main sanctuary. Pike says the goal was to make a fundamental change from tungsten stage wash to intelligent fixtures. “What initially drew us to the fixtures was their low power consumption,” he says, noting also that, since the LED fixtures run cooler than conventional alternatives, “the low temperature helps with climate control. With less HVAC, my haze lingers longer. Our old system,” he continues, “had 28 ETC Source Four 750’s, which threw a lot of heat onstage. The performers are very happy with the LED front wash, so it’s a win all the way around.”
The output is impressive as well. “The SolaWash Pro 2000 fixtures are so powerful, I can wash the entire downstage area with just four fixtures by using their zoom capability, and still avoid washing out the band by using the shutter feature,” Pike says. “The wash is completely even,” he adds, “with no dropouts on camera. And with a great color temperature, color reproduction for video is impressive,” he adds. “Pastor Rouse roams the stage left to right, and he is very pleased with how video looks now. These also have amazing color mixing.”
Pike deployed SolaSpot Pro 1500 profile fixtures both onstage and over the audience. “They are such a versatile light. They are big, but surprisingly fast, with brilliant colors.”
LightParts also supplied Pike with Claypaky B-Eyes and GLP GT-1’s, all of which are in the rig onstage. “German Light Product’s GT-1 is a phenomenal hybrid fixture,” Pike says. “I have been so happy with these, that it’s almost obsessive. We got some of the very first fixtures. Because of that, when they upgraded to version two with a brighter lamp and faster action, LightParts gave us a pallet of 12 and took version one back in an even swap. You just can’t beat that type of great customer service from both LightParts and GLP.”
Pike’s design philosophy is based on enhancing each musical or spoken presentation through the basic qualities of light, color, intensity and accents through movement and direction. While Martin’s Atomic 3000 strobes may seem out of place in a worship setting, these are the LED version, so they can be used as a wash or act as their Xenon brother. Elation ACL 360’s were also in house.
“Between the kaleidoscope effect engine of the [Claypaky] B-Eyes and the punch of the Elation ACL 360’s, I’m able to add more dimension and layers to my looks,” he adds.
Unique torms are flanked stage left and right, which he lights with GLPX 4Bar-20’s. The material is made of recycled sugarcane products, pressed and bleached into square panels, which Pike and the church tech staff assembled and framed for the stage. “They take light really well, and we use them as a much larger projection mapping element, along with the other seven projection surfaces in the sanctuary.”
As with any permanent installation, a licensed electrical contractor installs all high voltage wire, however, Pike and staff installed the entire system upgrade themselves.
Networking and Control
Production IT specialist Paul Bhandari handled the extensive Art-Net installation for the system. “He manages all of the networked devices and their respective backbones,” notes Pike.
Along with their full size Hog4 console, Pike also has Road Hog and HedgeHog desks and DP8000 DMX processors in Victory’s inventory. He points out that the consoles’ power and ease of operation make the Hog family a natural fit for Victory’s productions.
“I’ve used Hog consoles my entire career, and with this install we moved from the Hog3 to the Hog4 platform,” Pike says. “The console’s ability to manage and manipulate large groups of fixtures is very simple, making it a quick and powerful way to program.”
Another staple of Victory’s rig, purchased from LightParts, is the Axon HD Pro. “I felt like the Axon had great options and would suit what we were looking to do,” Pike says. “Basically, we wanted a stable platform to use for creative video elements. We are not yet using it to its full capacity, but it is certainly the backbone of our media servers.”
Despite the sophistication of the church’s presentations, the production team is comprised mostly of pastors and technicians, without a designated TD to call cue-to-cue. Pike admits that, given the complex routing of imagery and data, that can be a bit “risky.” But, he adds, “we are so invested in what’s about to happen that we know exactly what we need to do, and, of course, everybody is on Clear-Com.”
