Extensive equipment upgrades at Hope Church in Memphis, Tenn., have expanded the creative palette for the church's worship services and the community events held in its 5,000-seat sanctuary. Among the new additions are a dot2 XL-F console with built-in fader wing from MA Lighting and four Clay Paky A.leda B-EYE K20 lighting fixtures. Both brands are distributed in North America, exclusively by A.C.T Lighting, Inc.
The Nashville office of 4Wall Entertainment Lighting handled the lighting and associated rigging install. Hope Church already had a sophisticated array of equipment and a full 1080i HD workflow. Multimedia plays a key role in five weekend worship services as well as special community events, including concerts, movie nights, school graduation ceremonies, and memorials, such as a tribute to famed musician Isaac Hayes.
The upgrade at Hope Church added four LED screens, two of them flown as IMAG displays; revamped the entire audio complement; refurbished an inventory of 200-300 conventional lights; reutilized existing LED lights as truss warmers and added an array of new moving light fixtures. The upgrade also featured the installation of hinged straight truss in a series of arcs, which support wash lights and spots and serve as scenic elements in their own right.
"From the project’s inception we wanted to up the creative edge of everything happening in our space. We wanted to make sure our presentation matched the energy and vibe coming off the stage."
Brian Albrecht
Creative Director, Hope Church.
“Hope Church is known for great music in a city that's known for great music,” says Brian Albrecht, creative director at Hope Church. “From the project's inception we wanted to up the creative edge of everything happening in our space. We wanted to make sure our presentation matched the energy and vibe coming off the stage.”
“It was time to take things to the next level, to offer more visual and scenic options,” agrees Damon Herbert, integrator/designer at 4Wall. “They were interested in an MA platform for lighting control. So we introduced the church to dot2 XL-F, which has a lot of flexibility and tools and is very budget-friendly.” Part of MA Lighting's new range of compact dot2 consoles, the dot2 XL-F is durable and lightweight with intuitive operation. It includes a full programming section, master playback section, 14 fader playbacks and 28 individual playback buttons.
At Hope Church dot2 XL-F controls the conventional and moving lights and the electrical relays for the moving lights and house lights. “MA products are industry leaders – we can't keep them on the shelves,” says Herbert. “dot2 is a great tool for schools, churches and small tours: Users get the benefits of the MA platform while being mindful of their budgets.”
“We love dot2,” says Albrecht. “The amount of functionality it offers and the speed at which we can work makes it a whole different ballgame compared to our previous board. With dot2 we can create new and compelling looks very fast, and it's easy to use. We could never do what we're doing now with the old console.”
Hope Church also added four Clay Paky B-EYE K20s to its moving light package where they act as big wash lights. “They're such fun lights,” Albrecht says. “We enjoy doing specialized looks with individual LED control. We can create completely unique looks and utilize wonderful color palettes that no one has seen before. That's fun for us.”
4Wall's install was completed in time for the church's AV team, composed of professionals and volunteers, to learn the equipment and prepare for a busy schedule of Christmas services.
