LifeSpring Youth Install

SFL provide LifeSpring Church with an install for their youth at The Globe Church

Project - Youth Hall re-fit
Client - LifeSpring Church
Venue - The Youth Hall, The Globe, Reading
Production Man - Craig Lawrence

SFL recently undertook the job of fitting out half of the Youth Hall in The Globe for use by LifeSpring Church for their fast growing youth ministries. LifeSpring currently have 3 youth ministries running for a vast age range from 5 years old to 25 years old. LifeSpring are in the process of buying a church building but needed somewhere in the mean time that was well enough equipped to facilitate the 3 weekly meetings. When Pastor Joel Thomas from The Globe Church in Reading agreed to let LifeSpring use half of the Youth Hall as a semi-permanent installation, it was a race against the clock to get it ready in time.

The brief was to make the venue look like a professional gig venue as well as somewhere where the youth would feel comfortable to bring their mates to. On top of this, production manager Craig Lawrence had a strict budget to stick to and had to make sure everything that was purchased could be used in the future church building.

One of the main issues that SFL faced was the acoustics of the building. It's an empty warehouse with lots of flat reflective surfaces, RT60 times in excess of 5 seconds, basically it sounds rubbish in there. SFL got around this issue by the use of black drape 620 square metres of it. This drape not only acted as a great acoustic absorber for the high frequencies but also gave the venue a club feel and a professional look.

The speaker system that was designed by Mark Payne consisted of 2x d&b Ci90 Loudspeakers flow above the stage with d&b C7 subs under the stage. These speakers are controlled by d&b EPAC Amplifiers. EPACs were chosen to make a cost saving compared to D12's, this has sacrificed some headroom but there is still plenty in the system for the venue size. Youth pastor Andy Dickens wants to see this venue full (700 people) and the installed system is perfectly capable of achieving this.

The 24' x 16' stage made out of Lite Deck has been lit using 24k of Par cans. There are 3 flown bars of 6 and SFL installed some tank traps either side at the back of the stage. These provide a great colour wash on the backdrop and provide an impacting effect when combined with haze firing out into the audience along with the flown crowd blinders.

SFL also installed a 2000 Lumen DLP projector shining onto an 8' x 6' video screen. As the venue is always dark the images produced look stunning. Chris Everett, leader of Lighthouse Kids Church Reading used the venue for the first time on Sunday. When asked how he though it was he said 'it was beyond my wildest dreams'.