Not surprisingly, when Hope Lutheran was ready to upgrade its lighting system, they were interested in something vibrant, colourful, engaging, and forward looking in keeping with the church's commitment to innovative outreach. Excel AV Group of Maple Grove, MN provided these capabilities, using LED video panels and moving fixtures from Chauvet Professional.
"This is a very forward-looking church that wanted to create an engaging environment with a bold video panel display and moving heads, but at the same time wanted a look that would be inclusive for more traditional worshippers," said Caleb Dick, system designer for this project at Excel AV Group. "The Chauvet video panels were critical in helping us achieve this goal, because they were very bright, assembled seamlessly, and since they were easy to program, they allow the client to create a variety of looks."
Excel AV Group used 60 of the PVP S5 video panels from Chauvet Professional to create an impressive 16' wide by 10' high video screen in the centre stage area over the altar. During traditional services, the panels display fewer colours, more subdued graphical images and generally simpler text. When the contemporary services start later on a Sunday, the images on the video panels are more contemporary and accompanied by gobos and spots from the moving fixtures projected onto the church's walls.
Along with the video wall, Excel AV Group added four Legend 330SR Spot moving fixtures to the existing lighting system. These are dual purpose in a sense; they provide static illumination like a leko type fixture for some applications, but with the ability to change position, colour, and angle to create different looks. When they are dimmed, re-aimed, and then turned up again for traditional services, no one notices they are moving fixtures. The church also uses them to project coloured gobos on walls and some aerial effects for the contemporary services.
Excel also added four Q-Wash 419Z-LED RGBW moving washes at a second campus Hope Lutheran has in Fargo. This campus has a lower ceiling and less ambient light, which makes the Q-Wash better suited for this application. They are used for washing walls to create an engaging environment.
This project reinforced and furthered the vision statement of Hope Lutheran Church - constantly looking for new, innovative ways to engage worshippers.
(Jim Evans)
