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Selecting equipment for live production can be a very personal thing. Something like a lighting console, for instance, is a hands-on tool that will help you achieve a creative vision and interpretation for a worship service.
As techs though, we must keep good stewardship front of mind, considering that no matter how many cool options there are out there, we need to consistently ask ourselves, "What's best for our ministry and our facility?"
Here are three quick-hit considerations for church techs to ponder before the purchase of a new lighting console.
1- Most churches don’t really need much when it comes to bells and whistles. Sure, lighting console X may have an awesome effects engine, but if all you’re likely to do in a worship service is rotate some gobos in your basic moving lights, it just won’t matter.
We talk a lot about stewardship of resources and buying what’s needed, but the flip side of that coin is to make sure you don’t buy what’s not needed. There are several reasons for that.
Remember, buying more lighting console than you’re ever likely to need is a waste of money. The more features and capacity, the higher the price tag.
2-The more features, the more complicated the operation. You need to think about your current and potential volunteer base. Are you about to buy a console that a subset of your current volunteers won’t be able to handle? If that happens, who is going to take up the slack? And what about being able to recruit and train new volunteers? How long will it take for them to get up to speed, and how much additional time will it take you to train them?
You need to think about your current and potential volunteer base. Are you about to buy a console that a subset of your current volunteers won’t be able to handle?
Increased complexity can make it more likely that problems will incur during a service. And if a problem occurs, will your volunteers be able to quickly figure it out and fix it?
That said, if you need a sophisticated console to get the job done, then that’s the route you need to go. But keep in mind your volunteer base when you make your decision.
3-Narrow down your list to the features you truly need. This depends a lot on your service style, equipment to be controlled, infrastructure, and budget.
There are fairly simple consoles out there from ETC, Leprecon, Leviton and others that offer good basic control over a traditional theatrical rig. If you’re in a very traditional environment, you don’t need to go down the road of advanced consoles with effects and complicated cuing. It might behoove you though to be sure that what you pick can work well with color changing fixtures. Many very traditional worship environments are making good use of color in their architectural lighting to add beauty and visual interest to their sanctuaries. Even if you don’t do that now, there’s a good chance you eventually will.
For contemporary environments, even smaller ones, the dropping cost of color-changing fixtures and moving lights makes it a good idea to plan for the future and make sure that what you select will support the gear you hope to move to in the future. There are many consoles finding homes in houses of worship that meet these needs ranging from under $1,000 for software-only solutions to tens of thousands of dollars for advanced consoles.
And speaking of software-only solutions—these can be very cost-effective ways of getting significant features for a low cost. However, it’s well worth considering adding at least a simple “wing” to the system. This is a set of physical controls that plug into the computer that is running the software. There are playback wings that provide a set of faders and buttons for playing back cues; there are also wings that add controls to simplify programming cues.
... it’s well worth considering adding at least a simple “wing” to the system. This is a set of physical controls that plug into the computer that is running the software.
Why is this important? First, if the only way to get lights on in your room is through the console, you don’t want to have to train your janitors how to run the lighting system. A playback wing can give you a physical fader that will control the house lights, which is much easier for a non-technical person to deal with.
Also, if something unexpected happens in the service and you need to bring up the house lights or general stage front lighting, you don’t want to have to grab the mouse, figure out where the cursor is, get to the screen to select those lights, and then move to the controls that turn them on. Instead, you can program one fader for house lighting and one for stage front lighting, and be able to instantly grab that fader and push it up if you need light quickly.
