Walk into any church built before 1990 that still has its original lighting system and you are almost sure to be in a church where the platform lighting is of a poor quality. During this era of church design, lighting was not a priority and was regarded as more of a necessary evil, fulfilling a utilitarian role, and not considered to be important. Yes, a church needed some lighting to light the front of the room, but it was generally of a simplistic, low cost design. Usually it consisted of some type of track light with a screw in reflector lamp in a smaller room, or a cage of PAR lamps in a larger room.
Sometimes there was a dimming system, but many times it was just a bank of switches on the wall for control. While these designs did light the platform, the overall quality of light wasn’t really considered—and it wasn’t very good.
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In the 1990s things began to change as the quality of the lighting became more important. Video was beginning to be integrated for both image magnification (IMAG) as well as broadcast, and this forced churches to begin to invest in better lighting. In addition, churches wanted to add more of a concert-type look to worship. As a result, more and more churches began adopting lighting techniques that were used in theater, television, and the concert tours of the time. More and more theatrical fixtures and moving lights began to show up in churches, and as the technology evolved and became less expensive, churches adopted more of it.
Fast Forward ...
Today most new church builds include a theatrical lighting system that includes some of the latest and greatest lighting technology, while those existing churches that don’t have a theatrical lighting system are retrofitting their buildings and adding a theatrical system.The technology has changed over the years, but what is required to have a working lighting system has not. You still need four key ingredients to have a working system: These are the hang positions where the lighting fixtures are mounted, either dimmed or non-dimmed power to those positions, lighting fixtures, and some type of control system. All four are required to have a working system, however, the overall quality of the lighting system is heavily dependent on correct positioning of the hang positions, as well as good fixture choices.
Lighting Design Basics
When designing a lighting system the angle in which the light hits the platform is very important. Ideally, you want the angle of incidence to be 45 degrees since this keeps the shadows on the face to a minimum, yet still keeps the light from being directly in the speaker’s eyes. Maintaining the angle in the design becomes a function of height and distance from the platform. It also determines the length of the throw from the hang position to where the light lands on the platform.
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Throw distance is important to know when you are specifying theatrical fixtures in a church because to understand what the light will do when it gets to the platform you have to factor in the throw distance. A short throw distance generally means the light will cover a smaller area but be brighter; a long throw distance has the opposite effect—the light covers more area but is dimmer. All of this has to be taken into account when specifying fixtures.Beyond the pure design criteria of brightness and coverage, there are other things to keep in mind as you specify lighting fixtures: energy consumption, quality of light, maintenance, life expectancy, fixture cost, and functionality of the fixtures.
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Today we are much more energy-conscious than in years past, and theatrical lighting fixtures are big power users. Looking for fixture solutions that use LED emitters as the light source can cut both the power consumption as well as maintenance costs. In addition, in new construction you can lower the amount of electrical work that is required for an LED-based lighting system. LEDs also work well in retrofits, especially if there is limited power available in the building.
All-Important Considerations
Quality of light is an area that has to be considered when specifying fixtures. Traditionally incandescent fixtures are considered the gold standard for quality of light as they made skin tones look very nice. Today, with other lamp types such as fluorescent, arc lamp, and LED technologies, their light output doesn’t always flatter skin tones. While LED fixtures have many strengths, a full color mixing LED fixture doesn’t always have a good quality of light when trying to make a warm white source mimicking an incandescent fixture. Instead, to get that quality of light, you may have to consider a dedicated warm white LED fixture. Maintenance is another major factor to consider when making fixture choices. Considering that most lighting fixtures are hanging 25 feet or more off the floor, the less you have to use a lift, ladder, or scaffolding to do maintenance on the fixtures the better.
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Once again, LEDs shine in this area because they require very little maintenance and have a lamp life in the 50,000-hour range compared with a 2,000-hour incandescent lamp. That’s almost six years of continuous use for an LED fixture. That is a nice life expectancy if you are only using the fixtures 20 hours a week.
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Then, there is functionality; an LED fixture or a moving light can offer a lot of functionality in comparison to the typical incandescent fixture. However, this added functionality comes at a much higher price. While an incandescent ellipsoidal fixture might cost $400, the same thing in an LED is going to run approximately $1,600, or four times the cost. Of course over time you will recoup that money in energy and maintenance savings, but you still have the higher up front costs.The design criteria you have to meet in your project will ultimately determine what fixtures you specify in your design. Unlike the years of old, today we have more choices than a set of track lights or a rack of PARs. Theatrical lighting fixtures come in all shapes, sizes, prices, and have varied functionality. There is a great deal of theatrical lighting equipment on the market that can meet your specific requirements—all you have to do is determine your needs and then find the product. Here’s wishing you a future of happy specifying.
