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NEWS
Indiana Church Volunteers Find Easy Learning
Curve with New Lighting Control System
NOBLESVILLE, IN — Grace Community
Church expanded recently with three weekend
worship auditoriums that together can accommodate
up to 6,000 churchgoers, and if the
lighting system that’s part of the multi-million
dollar expansion looks sophisticated, it is controlled
at times by church volunteers.
“Nothing I have seen compares to the
functionality and ease-of-use that the Vista series
provides,” said Daryl Cripe, senior director
of production at the church, which invested in
full-size Vista T2, portable Vista S1 and playbackonly
Vista M1 consoles.
The Church relies on a team of more than
100 volunteers to assist the paid production
staff during services, “all of whom have no
Jeannine Fortier
A graphic interface helps keep the Vista lighting control system
intuitive for the volunteer staff at Grace Community Church.
previous lighting experience,” Cripe noted. “As
such, yes, we need a lot of features and stability,
yet we also need a console that is visual, easy
to train on.
“From our volunteer’s perspective, the Vista
is visual,” Cripe noted. “They can look at a screen
and see what they are doing. It feels very familiar
to navigate, so they can use their existing
computer knowledge.
“We can configure the Vista screen to look
like our lighting layout in the room,” Cripe added.
“The ease of creating groups, presets, cues
etc. is all so simple. In addition, patching fixtures
in Vista is incredibly simple. I recently showed
the technical director at another Church our T2
console and when I showed him how to patch
an automated fixture, his mouth dropped
open.”
The lighting system for the main auditorium,
with an 80-foot-by-40-foot stage and with
seating in a 270° configuration, includes over
850 LED, moving and conventional fixtures
controlled using six universes of DMX and over
2,700 DMX channels.
For that space, Cripe was looking to paint
the whole room with light. The full-size Linuxbased
Vista T2 console provides seamless automation
of the auditorium’s lighting rig and
blackout window shutters. LED fixtures provide
color changing wall uplighting either side of
the stage area, while a mixture of moving lights,
PARs, ParNels and conventional fixtures provide
theatrical performance lighting for music and
drama during the services.
The two smaller spaces seat 1,100 and 400,
and have lighting rigs that are controlled by the
Vista S1 and M1 PC based consoles. The two
control surfaces are designed to be used with
either a Windows PC or native Mac laptop and
DMX channel dongle package.
The ability for volunteers to be able to
switch easily between consoles in all three
auditoriums was another key factor in Cripe’s
decision to choose the Vista. All models share
exactly the same visual interface and controls,
making a transition between models seamless.
“We want them to be spending their time
having fun programming, not trying to figure
out some complex function on the console
itself,” Cripe noted. “Any church that desires to
use theatrical lighting and wants to provide volunteers
the opportunities to create should be
examining this series of consoles.”
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PLSN OCTOBER 2009