The progressive Lifegate Church in Omaha, which was founded back in 1975 as Trinity Church Interdenominational, is a growing organization, with an average congregation of 1900 people attending its weekly services.
With its theological roots in the Christian and Missionary Alliance, and a sanctuary that seats around 1350 people, Lifegate’s technical production values need to match that of a concert like atmosphere.
Currently in the process of moving to a multi-site model on a new campus, the church recently took the decision to remodel its existing stage and lighting, and upgrade its video delivery system from SDI to HD.
This included the installation of state of the art impression Spot One and impression Wash One LED moving heads from GLP in an investment driven by the Church’s Executive Director, Creative Communications and Technology, Robert Wilson.
It was local GLP dealers Heartland Scenic — who meet around 80% of the Church’s lighting needs — that steered Wilson towards the GLP solution.
“I was looking for yoke fixtures because of their capability to enhance our worship experience,” he explained. “I was focused on several features: brightness, color range, gobo options, flexibility, ease of use and maintenance.” He attended a demo at Heartland — whom he describes as “a major player in the Omaha market who have always done an excellent job” — and also witnessed a video demo of the impression Spot One. Instantly impressed with the attributes of GLP’s innovative LED head, he ordered four of these and a further pair of impression Wash Ones.
Installed by the Church’s technical team, the four impression Spot Ones are mounted on truss towers flanking the stage, with the impression Wash One fixtures positioned downstage on the floor, with all lighting (including over 30 LED battens) controlled from the front of house booth.
Generally used to provide atmosphere for the worship set, the impression Spot One was the first fixture of its kind to be released to the global market. By harnessing the raw power of numerous LED sources and running it through an advanced optical system GLP has created an even beam for RGB color mixing at the same time achieving a focusable area for gobo projections. The result is a true hard edge LED profile fixture with a packed graphics engine that includes two fully indexable gobo wheels.
Boasting a similar baseless yoke, and 400W RGB LED light engine, impression Wash One offers a 6°-60° zoom range — but the key differentiator is its innovative 3° narrow beam mode and its unique variable soft-edge beam control that allows softness adjustment. Another attribute is the beam shaping function that enables the user to illuminate only the parts of a stage that need to be lit.
Speaking of the GLP fixtures, Robert Wilson couldn’t be happier. “These are great lights that deliver consistent brightness through the color spectrum with all the capability of a yoke fixture. The gobo wheels as particularly impressive with the added features.
“We are just beginning to discover all their attributes, but from what we have been able to use them for so far, the results have been awesome. They are a great fixture with the anticipated ease of maintenance providing an additional benefit.”
The fixtures play a vital role as Lifegate Church continues its new campus development for the 3000 or so members of the church community — which boasts a total of four rooms that are all rigged with dual screen projection, stage, full band set up and digital audio.
