Saddleback Church invests in Robe Fortes
- Details
The Baptist Evangelical mega-church in southern Orange County is the largest in California and one of the biggest in the US with several campuses in California and worldwide, complete with a busy worship schedule inspired by senior pastor and best-selling author Rick Warren.
For now, the 24 new Forte luminaires - the Church’s first Robe investment, specified by lighting manager Jacob Olson and supplied via integrator Amplio Systems - are rigged on trusses above an impressive temporary tented structure, custom-designed and erected during reconstruction of their church’s main auditorium.
The structure was erected when the California COVID tier system enabled the church to start holding limited capacity worship sessions once again, providing a safe temporary venue for socially distanced events during the pandemic.
Jake had recently graduated from University of Alabama where he studied Production Design & Technology when he joined the technical team at Saddleback Church, which is led by technical director Dennis Choy and John Cassetto who oversees all the worship sessions.
One of Jake’s initial tasks was to start looking for appropriate fixtures for the new worship center. The large auditorium will have its previous 3,500 capacity increased once finished, so this already needed bright high-impact luminaires.
“Fast, fluid and flexible” was a mantra driving the choice of all the production elements - lighting, sound and video - explained Jake, and for lighting in the 130 x 130ft temporary amphitheatre, they additionally needed fixtures powerful enough to make their multi-camera broadcasts look great in daylight as well as in dark conditions.
The structure is built on one of the many lawn areas and covered by a series of scrim-like roof skins allowing 20% light transmission.
Jake lights most of the worship sessions himself using a grandMA3 system, and assorted other lights including LED battens, LED strobe / floods and moving wash lights, but the Fortes are right at the core of the rig.
