Altman Lighting transforms Richfield Church
- Details
Needing an upgrade to the complete lighting system, they worked with the design professionals at Mercury Sound and Lighting who installed a new house design filled with Chalice LED downlights from Altman Lighting.
“This was actually our first time working with the church and they wanted us to take a look at their theatrical and house lighting equipment which was reaching the end of its life cycle,” began Japheth Boivin, A/V solutions facilitator, Mercury Sound and Lighting. “The existing house lights were custom fixtures made specifically for the space when it was initially constructed, and they were becoming costly and difficult to maintain. To alleviate these challenges, they wanted an LED retrofit of their house lighting design, so we installed a package of Chalice LED downlights.”
As the team at Mercury Sound and Lighting prepared to tackle the retrofit of the house design, they would face a bit of a challenge when it came to working space. In a sanctuary with both high ceilings and minimal room to work overhead, the innovative dimming capabilities of the Chalice LED luminaires would prove to be a valuable asset to the design.
“With a ceiling height of about 45ft at some points, and no crawl space in a sanctuary that was built from the top down, running new lines to new locations was not an option,” continued Boivin. “This was another one the reasons we opted to go with the Mains-Dimmable Chalice fixtures so that we could utilize the existing power lines and still have all of the benefits of an LED house lighting system.
“I have been in the industry for a long time, and for house lighting fixtures in an LED retrofit, Altman Lighting is my first call,” added Boivin. “The install was a one-to-one replacement of the old system giving them a significant reduction in energy costs as one Chalice only pulls about 145 watts, compared to 1000-1500 watts each for the older fixtures.”
With the new house design in place, the team at Mercury Sound and Lighting turned their attention to the control of the LED luminaires.
“For the control, we created various lighting zones for the different architectural looks the church wanted to see which are easily controlled via a DMX wall plate,” explained Boivin. “From there, control is also run back to the new theatrical lighting console so that when the FOH technician is active, control is taken away from the wall plate. This way there is no tug-of-war between the two control points, and they can easily integrate the house lighting into their theatrical worship designs.”
(Jim Evans)
