In August, one of America’s largest Christian groups, the Assemblies of God, summoned youth from across the United States to its National Youth Convention and Fine Arts Festival in Anaheim, California. Held August 7-11 at the Anaheim Convention Center, an important centerpiece of the event was a large stage set up used for presentations, services and evening concert celebrations, much of which was live streamed.
Elation dealer Illuminate Production Services (IPS) provided a large Elation lighting and video rig for the 5-day gathering with IPS’s Caleb Franke handling lighting design duties. IPS, headed by Caleb’s father Rick Franke, worked on the project with Jerry Dahlberg of DC Productions and used a wide variety of Elation gear on the event.
House of worship feel on a large scale
With Assembly of God church students from all across the nation in attendance, and the 10,000 seat capacity venue hosting a concert each night, the opportunity to make an impression was great. The goal for IPS was to create a house of worship feel on a large scale and give attendees a memorable experience.
LD and programmer, 18-year-old Caleb Franke, created impact from the start with a big opener that had lots of energy and volume. “I like to keep the shows interesting programming wise,” he said while mentioning that he did his first show when he was 7 years old and really got involved in lighting around sixth grade. “I’ll go from beam looks to very wide gobo looks with prism effects. I also like to use a lot of saturation with color in my designs, which fills in the stage well.”
Used some Elation fixtures for first time
Although IPS has a long history of using Elation products, there were a few Elation fixtures that the Roseville, CA-based lighting and event production company used on the show for the first time. “We’re using the DW Fresnel™ for the first time and really loving it,” Rick Franke commented of the variable white light LED luminaire. “On this show an even stage wash was really important for the IMAG element and we’re really happy with them.” Sixteen DW Fresnel fixtures were used to light the entire stage and for all of the key lighting.
“The video crew we are working with is used to working with really high-end Fresnel fixtures. Let’s just say they had their doubts when they first saw the DW Fresnels but were blown away and very impressed by them. The zoom range is really nice and it has great optics.”
Another new Elation fixture for IPS was the full-featured Artiste DaVinci™ theatrical-grade LED moving head spot. “Those are definitely one of the highlights of this rig,” Caleb Franke stated. “The optics are amazing, it’s really bright, has a great zoom, good gobos, and is fast. I’m learning more and more about the Artiste DaVinci and what you can do with those.” A dozen of the DaVinci movers were used in the rig, a fixture Rick Franke praised as well for its excellent color saturation.
Color and effects
Ample amounts of color were necessary to wash the large 56’ wide by 40’ deep stage and IPS turned to a combination of Elation Fuze Wash Z350™ LED wash light moving heads and SixBar 1000™ color-changing LED battens for the job. “The Fuze Wash Z350 has a nice zoom and excellent colors and you can get both a really nice warm white and cold white out of them,” Caleb stated. “We have some SixBars in the rig as well, which are great. The UV/Amber/White in them is always awesome.”
Used to frame the large stage was ACL 360 Bar™ LED moving bar effects, versatile moving battens with individual LED control for eye candy looks and continuous rotation for dynamic movement. “We have ACL 360 Bars fanned across the stage, which have been really nice on the show and a lot of fun to work with,” Caleb said, adding that they also added a lot of pixelation to the show. “Those have really widened the stage out for this room, especially because it’s a flat floor.”
Multi-functional lighting
IPS has owned a number of Elation’s multi-functional Platinum FLX™ fixtures for years and has been a real fan of the award-winning hybrid fixtures, which were used on the show with another of Elation’s hybrid fixtures, the Platinum HFX™. “We’ve toured with the FLX and they’ve really stood the test on the road,” Caleb says. “I love the beam in them and love how in spot mode there are no hot spots. It’s really unlimited with the FLX.” He adds, “We also have Platinum HFXs in the rig, which has been a nice air effects type fixture and have treated us really well.”
For the National Youth Convention shows, IPS used 17 Cuepix Blinder WW4s™ as blinders throughout the house. In installs and system integration projects however, Rick Franke comments that they’ve been able to use the fixtures with its wide beam angle even as house lights. “They’ve worked really well for that,” he says. “Especially for churches on a budget that need to light a large area with downlight. Perhaps the venue’s dimmers are outdated and they want something that will punch as houselights. We can use the Cuepix Blinders with their 3200 Kelvin color temperature for those.”
Backdrop LED wall and ancillary screens
A large backdrop LED video screen formed the stage’s dominate visual element, along with several portrait LED screens stage right and left. More LED screens in varying sizes lined the downstage truss. The backdrop LED video screen was made up of Elation 6.7mm pixel pitch EPT6IP™ high-resolution LED display panels. Measuring approximately 50 feet wide by 12 feet high (24 panels wide by 6 panels high), the upstage wall was used to create static looks during the message. The portrait screens, as well as the ancillary downstage screens of varying sizes, were made up of Elation 20mm EVLED LED video panels and used for live IMAG, graphics, messaging and eye candy.
The rig included other Elation lights including Platinum Profile 35 Pro™ moving heads used as front wash, high-powered Protron 3K™ LED strobes, Platinum Beam 5R Extreme™ moving head beam lights, and Rayzor Q12 Zoom™ LED wash lights. “The rig was great,” stated Rick Franke, who added that they received a lot of positive comments on the lighting from attendees. “We’ve learned that when you have the right crew and the right gear together we can create some really great shows.” Lastly, he sends a big shout out to son Caleb. “More than as a proud dad, I see him as a professional who is really standing out well in the industry.”
For more information, contact Elation Professional at sales@elationlighting.com, toll-free at 866-245-6726 or visit www.elationlighting.com
