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American DJ Ultra HEX Par 3
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GLP impression X4S
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High End Systems SolaSpot CMY LED
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(L) Lightronics LB51 Lighting Package and (R) Phillips Showline SL PAR 150 Zoom
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Chroma-Q Color One 100 LED Par
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(L) Martin Professional Rush PAR2 and (R) Mega-Lite Baby Color Q70
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Elation SixPar 100
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ETC Source Four LED Series 2
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Chauvet Professional ColoRado 1-Quad IP
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Philips Color Kinetics ColorBlaze TR4
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Blizzard Lighting RokBox Series
Lighting any church service well can take a great deal of planning and programming time. Lighting for a portable church, however, tend to have its own set of unique problems.
“We look for three major things when it comes to great portable fixtures: price, portability and performance,” says Kevin Jones, director of sales and marketing for Portable Church Industries of Troy, Mich. “There are very few lights that don't work in portable churches, but many of them might require modifications or a particular model of that light, or to be pre-hung in a certain way to both protect the light as well as make it easy for the volunteers.”
“The No. 1 issue for a portable church is power,” states Mike Gardner, managing partner of Church on Wheels based in Madera, Calif. “The types of locations that portables churches often meet in, such as a local school, don't have a lot of extra power in the room where they are allowed to meet. Therefore, traditional incandescent lighting systems, which consume a lot of power, are problematic.”
Another large issue for the portable church is setup. “Structuring your equipment so that it can be set up quickly with minimal effort is also key,” adds Jones. “Your entire AVL system needs to be designed to be rolled into your temporary facility easily and as close to fully assembled as possible. For lighting, we like to use pre-hung, 24-inch box truss where the lighting fixtures fit within the truss and stay wired even during storage and transport. Or, we use pre-hung light bars that you pull out of a case, put on a stand, and lift or crank up to their designed height.”
The ability to withstand transport and weekly setup and tear down is also an important attribute to consider. “In an ideal world, we are looking for fixtures with substantial bodies—not just thin gauge aluminum or plastic,” says Gardner. “These fixtures tend to be substantially more expensive than entry-level or ‘prosumer' lights. Alternatively, and less expensively, we can work with a less expensive fixture by spending just a little more money on the storage solution so they are not jostled around as much every week.”
LED Advent
One of the biggest boons to lighting for portable churches is the LED fixture. These typically consume less power than incandescent fixtures, enable color changing without the need for gels, and provide a lot of flexibility. While many LED fixtures are not as bright as traditional theatrical fixtures for pure white light, rich, saturated colors can be obtained that far more intense than traditional fixtures for far less power.
Moving lights, also known as intelligent fixtures or simply movers, also benefit from LED light sources. Most intelligent fixture manufacturers have an LED line, and many have fixtures that are also smaller and light in weight—an additional advantage for the portable church.
CPM contacted many of the popular lighting fixture manufacturers and asked them for their recommendations out of their offerings for portable churches. Here is what some had to say about their products.
American DJ Ultra HEX Par 3
The American DJ Ultra HEX Par 3 is a versatile LED PAR fixture with three 10-Watt, 6-in-1 hex LEDs. With a 40-degree beam angle, users can produce wide washes with smooth color mixing from 63 built-in color macros utilizing red, green, blue, amber, white and UV LEDs. Not only is this LED PAR great for lighting stages, but with its patent-pending, intelligently designed power and DMX connectors, it's great for up-lighting a venue.
MSRP: $209.95
Blizzard Lighting RokBox Series
Blizzard Lighting's RokBox LED fixtures are compact, rugged fixtures built to be the backbone of your portable lighting rig. Equipped with 18 LEDs, RokBox is available with five-watt cool white/warm white/amber LEDs, 10-watt RGBW LEDs, or 15-watt RGBAW, RGBW+UV or RGBAW+UV LEDs. All fixtures feature multiple exceptionally smooth 32-bit dimming curves, PowerCON power connections, ultra-quiet cooling and are ETL approved. RokBox also powers Blizzard's Wicicle wireless DMX system without additional power. Available barn doors, gel frame and durable acrylic frost filter add even more versatility.
MSRP: $499.99-$799.99
Chauvet Professional ColoRado 1-Quad IP
Light in your truck, light on your rig and light on your budget, all while bringing bright colorful light to indoor and outdoor services; the ColoRado 1-Quad is an ideal “workhorse” fixture for portable churches. This par-style light loads seven quad-color (RGBW) LEDs into a rugged yet compact fixture that can be mounted on truss or stood on its own double bracket yoke floor stand. Featuring build-in and DMX programming capabilities, it has smooth dimming curves; offers dual-zone ring/center pixel control; comes with a gel frame holder; and renders vivid colors and true whites.
MSRP: $709.99
Chroma-Q Color One 100
The Chroma-Q Color One 100 LED PAR features an industry-first, fully homogenized beam. The innovative lens with a well-defined 20-degree blended output was designed to eliminate the color separation and shadows that are synonymous with individual and quad chip LEDs.
The Color One is ideal for front-light applications where multiple shadows are unacceptable. As a backlight, the homogenized output provides a soft natural look facing the congregation while reading beautifully on camera.
The small size (8.5 x 10.5 inches) and lightweight body (8.5 pounds) make the Color One ideal for quick set-up and transporting inside portable truss.
MSRP: $710
Philips Color Kinetics ColorBlaze TR4
The ColorBlaze TR4 family of intelligent RGBW or RGBA fixtures offers an expanded palette of intensely saturated full-color light output in two different beam angles. Expanded on-board controls feature a range of new functions, including multiple color control modes, eight- and 16-bit resolution, a configurable intensity channel, transition speeds, dimming curves, improved color consistency with Chromasync technology, and four built-in effects (fixed color, color wash, chasing rainbow, and random color). A universal power input range and direct line-voltage operation make ColorBlaze TR4 Powercore fixtures easy to install and operate.
MSRP info: $3,430
Elation SixPar 100
Elation's SixPar 100 is a bright PAR light that uses a six-color RGBWA+UV LED multi-chip for an expanded color palette. Wrapped in a rugged die-cast aluminum housing with adjustable dual yoke/floor stand, multiple fixtures can easily be power- and data-linked for quick setup. The fixture houses seven 12-watt LEDs and consumes a low 89W of power. Capable of strobing and smooth dimming, it includes dimming curves and color and chase macros. With an LED life rating of 100,000 hours, service intervals are few. SixPar is also available in 7-, 12- and 18-LED IP65 versions.
MSRP: $599.95
ETC Source Four LED Series 2
ETC's Source Four LED Series 2 luminaire is a great fit for portable churches because it is color-calibrated for consistency, which means users spend less time trying to get the right look during the limited setup time they have. The Series 2 uses a unique blend of LED colors to create the broadest color range possible from an LED, so portable churches can get the highest-quality light that won't distract from their mission. And it reportedly has incredible efficiency with great lumens per watt, so users need fewer fixtures and don't have to worry about limited power issues.
MSRP: $2,395
GLP impression X4S
The impression X4S LED fixture from GLP is a small, lightweight wash fixture with an impressive zoom range designed for movable applications, such as portable churches. With full color RGBW light sources, the X4S gives even light output and with its broad zoom range, it gives the flexibility when you don't exactly know where you will be able to rig. Just 12-inches tall and weighing 12 pounds, it can remain mounted in trusses as it's moved, reducing set up time. Using just 150 Watts, you can easily connect multiple units together on a single 110V wall circuit.
MSRP: $2,999
High End Systems SolaSpot CMY LED
Outputting over 13,000 lumens from a 320-Watt LED source, the High End SolaSpot CMY LED is likely not only the brightest but possibly the most efficient LED spot available. By using the SolaSpot LED, lighting designers no longer need to make compromises between the quality of white and color, and they no longer have to worry about the quantity of output, because it has the specs to replace existing 700w and some 800w arc fixtures.
Alongside yet another industry first when it comes to LED and CMY are features like linear CTO, two gobo wheels, a fixed color wheel, very quick zoom and focus, a prism, iris and frost.
MSRP: $6,550 (includes road case)
Lightronics LB51 Lighting Package
Lighting System in a Box is completely portable and self-contained. Rugged construction and advanced design ensures that your system will stand up to the rigors of touring and daily use. The TL5024 DMX console provides full multi-scene dimming control plus pre-stored scenes and chase functions. The wireless DMX aspect of the system enables you to concentrate on the performance and not the equipment. This excellent start up system is easily expandable and all equipment offers industry-standard five-pin DMX-512 control signals in addition to the wireless DMX. An upgrade package is available which adds additional dimmers and lights. Lighting System in a Box is a reliable, professional system that will have you up and running in record time at an economical price.
MSRP: $2,499
Martin Professional Rush PAR2
The Rush PAR 2 RGBW Zoom is a bright single-lens LED PAR Can. It boasts a spectacular 10-60 degree zoom range that allows it to adapt to various applications and functionality. It offers electronic dimming and strobe and comes with a flexible bracket for floor or truss mounting. Designed to be the backbone of a system for backlight and key-light applications, yet flexible enough to light scenic and staging elements when helping create dynamic worship experience within a portable or permanent space.
MSRP: $895
Mega-Lite Baby Color Q70
Portable churches will love the output to consumption ratio of the Mega-Lite Baby Color Q70. It is a bright color-changing fixture that's ultra-compact in size. Equipped with seven 10-watt LEDs and less than a five-inch square body, the output of the Baby Color Q70 contends with the output of larger fixtures. The RGBW quad-chip LEDs produce a wide range of colors, including pastel shades. The fixture has a 20-degree beam angle and comes with a diffuser to soften the beam. The Baby Color Q70 is controllable via DMX 512 and has strobe, macro and dimmer effects.
MSRP: $209
Phillips Showline SL PAR 150 Zoom
The Showline SL PAR 150 Zoom is a die-cast aluminum LED PAR can that utilizes nine high-powered and homogenized 15-watt RGBW LEDs to produce more than 3,200 lumens of output. The manual zoom provides a beam angle range from 15–70 degrees and the split-yoke bracket allows for easy hanging or floor mounting. The rugged construction, internal power supply, and ease of use make the SL PAR 150 Zoom a natural replacement for conventional theatrical PAR fixtures by providing designers with the high output and excellent color uniformity.
MSRP: $832
