A former paramedic/firefighter who then spent ten years working in the oil and gas industry, Wes Akin felt a sense of calling to serve others again and began volunteering as the Technical Director at Athens First United Methodist Church in Athens, Texas. Over time this simultaneously led to a full-time role at the church, overseeing business and operations, and a rekindling of his passion for technical production. Akin founded Gain Stage Productions to offer live audio and visual services to local venues as well as to provide installation services for churches in the area.
Akin’s first project was to design and install the audio and lighting system for Athens First’s new contemporary worship center, which was created by renovating the church’s old fellowship hall. After meeting over coffee and donuts before church, members of the congregation now have two choices: a contemporary service in the new worship space or a more traditional service in the main sanctuary.
For the new contemporary venue, Akin designed a system that would offer a great deal of flexibility while also giving a very modern feel to the relatively small space. He also purposely selected all LED-powered fixtures, both to minimize future maintenance requirements and to keep the power bills down.
To achieve the contemporary looks of sweeping beams and other aerial effects that he wanted, Akin needed moving heads on the new rig. But due to the low ceiling height and a tight budget, he also needed fixtures that were both compact and offered exceptional value for money. He found what he was looking for in the ADJ Focus Series, selecting six Focus Spot Twos and a further four Focus Spot Ones.
The small but potent Focus Spot Twos, each powered by a 75-watt white LED source, are hung from a truss at the back of the stage. Meanwhile, the even more compact Focus Spot Ones, which each utilize efficient 35-watt white LED sources, are arranged in pairs on the drum and bass risers positioned at either side of the stage. Despite their small dimensions, both fixtures pack in plenty of features. These include a rotating Gobo wheel with EZ Gobo replacement, an independent color wheel and an additional 3-watt built-in UV LED, as well as their signature feature of motorized focus.
“The Focus Spot Ones and Twos have a lot of punch and, for the size of room, they are plenty bright enough,” confirms Akin. “I have a lot of LED pars backlighting the stage that they are fighting against, but the movers don’t have any trouble at all punching through. The Focus Spot Twos can be used to spotlight performers from behind and for nice aerial effects and the Focus Spot Ones on the risers are great for beam sweeps and shooting GOBOs up behind the frontline performers. The two fixtures definitely complement each other well set up in this way.”
Backlighting is provided by ADJ’s 5PX Hex and 12PX Hex par fixtures, which feature five and twelve 12-Watt 6-in-1 hex LEDs, respectively. Four of each model are rigged to the rear truss, while an additional eight 12PX Hex units are floor mounted at the back of the stage to up-light the rear wall. Another four 5PX HEX units are rigged above the stage on a central truss and are used to light the backline musicians. This truss is also home to four of ADJ’s Dotz Par 100 100-Watt COB LED wash fixtures, which are used to downlight the frontline singers. Finally, an additional four 12PX HEX units provide front color wash for the stage, while key lighting is covered by a pair of ADJ’s Par Z Move fixtures.
The versatile Par Z Move is a wash fixture powered by an extremely potent 200W warm white COB LED light engine. This is housed in a par-style fixture with a motorized zoom assembly which is then mounted to a moving head base. This allows washes of between 9 and 43-degrees to be directed in any desired direction, for key light and other stage washing applications where focuses need to change on a regular basis.
“Our stage performers vary from week to week,” explains Akin, “one week I may have three frontline performers; then the next week I may have two. So, depending on how many people we have on a given week, and where they are standing that day, I need to focus key lighting in different places. Having to climb up there and reposition lights every Sunday was something I just didn’t want to have to do, so a moving head solution was ideal. The Par Z Move is extremely flexible not only because it is a moving head but also due to its wide zoom range, which was very important in this situation. There really isn’t a long throw between the front truss and where the performers are standing, yet I can still get nice full body coverage of the singers up front but also shoot it across the stage and focus it in on someone on the back line.”
The light beams on stage are enhanced by haze from an ADJ Entour Venue, while control of the whole system is covered by ADJ’s myDMX 3.0 software. The trussing is all from Global Truss and all the DMX cables are from the Accu-Cable range, meaning that absolutely everything was sourced from the ADJ Group of Companies. A decision made based on Akin’s previous experience of ADJ’s reliability and strong customer support.
“I’ve had very few issues with ADJ equipment,” he confirms, “and between our church, my own touring setup and projects I’ve done for other churches, I’ve used a lot of it! But when I do have issues I know I can count on great aftersales support from ADJ. I did have an issue where a couple of the 5P HEXs lost a couple of colors, so I contacted ADJ, got an RMA, sent them off, and within a week they were back good as new. I’ve not had many problems with ADJ lights, but when I have, the service department have knocked it out of the park!”
This positive experience of ADJ’s products was one of the primary reasons Akin recommended the ADJ AV3 LED video panel system to the church’s leadership when a little while later it was time to replace an aging projector setup. A pair of 15-year-old video projectors were being used to display hymn words, scripture readings and sermon visual aids in the main sanctuary, but they had become unreliable. Another issue was that as the space has a lot of natural ambient light, the screens could often we difficult to see clearly. Akin discussed a variety of options with the church’s senior leadership – including new laser-powered projectors and other LED panel models – built ultimately the ADJ AV3 system was chosen to be the best option.
Akin and his team purchased two 12 panel (4 x 3) AV3 video walls and hung them at either side of the sanctuary at the front, utilizing existing rigging points that had previously been used to hang the projection screens. Run from a Novastar MCTRL300 video processor, both screens display the same content and mean that it is clearly visible from every pew.
“Both the pastors and congregation were blown away by the difference between this new system and the old projectors,” enthuses Akin. “On the first Sunday they were installed I hadn’t had a chance to dial in the brightness yet, and the Associate Pastor had chosen a green background for some of her graphic slides. The whole congregation looked like a bunch of green aliens the screens produced so much green light! We’re now running them at 35% output, which is still more than enough to ensure graphics are clearly visible from the front to the back even on really sunny days.”
Athens First UMC’s two worship spaces are now well-equipped to allow the church’s technical teams to support the pastors and worship leaders on stage with appropriate visual enhancement for the two very different styles of service offered to the church’s growing congregation. Akin is thankful he was able to specify everything using equipment sourced from just one supplier, streamlining the order and delivery process as well as simplifying any potential future requirement for after-sales support. He was so satisfied with the products and service provided by ADJ, he has since kitted out Gain Stage Productions’ hire stock with ADJ lighting and also installed ADJ fixtures in a number of other local churches.
For more information about Athens First UMC, visit www.firstathens.org.
For more information about Gain Stage Productions, visit www.gainstageproductions.com.
Gear List – Traditional Worship Space
24 x ADJ AV3
Novastar MCTRL300
Gear List – Contemporary Worship Space
12 x ADJ 12PX HEX
8 x ADJ 5PX HEX
4 x ADJ Focus Spot One
6 x ADJ Focus Spot Two
2 x ADJ Par Z Move
ADJ Entour Venue
ADJ myDMX 3.0
Accu Cable Cables
Global Truss Trussing
For more information about ADJ products, visit www.adj.com.
