The idea was to have pillars on stage and to point out that the book of Romans has many pillars of our faith, but also they wanted to try to create the feel of ancient Rome as well.

The pillars were a hard plastic and are 8 feet tall. They were purchased from here for $110 a piece and two 4 foot tall columns for $66. (The company is a great company to consider if you need something similar.)

The Fabric was then purchased and cut to size by volunteers from their church and attached to four 2×2′s. They then drilled enough holes to attach to the top of the columns. This is a portable design and gets set up and taken down each week.

Cost: $900

To make this happen they created three panels with a shower curtain wrapped tightly around them – back lit with six LED strips. This project cost about $90.

Tyrone bought ten 8” 2×4 pieces of wood and built the frames. He went to Walmart and bought three frost shower curtains and wrapped them around the frames. He already had the LED strips so he just put them behind the panels and shining on the band.

Their project had 3 goals; 1) convert an underground parking lot into a space suitable for a conference, 2) the space had to transform multiple times to host 3 different events during the conference, props had to be mobile so that any volunteer can help when the space required transformation – all of this plus 3) adhere to the event art direction and branding.

The main space was a very cold concrete event space. It was the basement floor of a 6 story parking structure. They wanted to bring in the colors of the conference inside this space (Pink/Corals) so they purchased large rolls of tyvek (2′, 6′, 8′ widths) and painted the back side of the material to make customized colored wallpaper. Once they plotted the colors, they attached the tyvek securely using double sided foam-tape. This process took 5 days to complete, the space was huge and we had a steady shift of volunteers working non-stop during the week.

They took this same theme and applied it to the inside of the church outer sanctuary, and upper floor. This tied the installations together visually.

They also built these large rolling flats with wheels. The purpose of the flats was that they needed to 1) divide the event space up and 2) quickly refresh their look by simply turning and rolling them around. On one side they painted stripes to match with the visuals and on the opposite side they painted chalkboard paint that tied in with the conference teaching moment (Chalkboard was used later by guests to write down words).

They also built scenes from their video promo that tied visually to the event. These scenes were used as photo-shoot moments for the guests.

All concept/execution work by volunteers.

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Photography © Mat Fretschel (http://www.matfretschel.com/)

They used Coroplast, butcher paper, and PVC pipe for this design.

They made 10 ft sections of the design and hung each one using hefty wire. Each section would consist of a 2×10′ Coroplast sheet (these were cut from the warehouse where they purchased them), crinkled white butcher paper sprayed glued onto the Coroplast sheets, then one and a half inch PVC pipe to cap off the bottom and top of each section. The Coroplast was zip tied onto the PVC. They screwed in eye hooks to the top piece of each PVC and each 10ft section hung from the one above it. They used one and a half inch PVC couplers to make all the 10ft sections come together as one.

The side sections you see were 6ft sections of the design. Rather than hanging them, these were drilled into the walls.

Places of purchase….
White Coroplast – www.coroplast.com
White Butcher Paper – www.discountschoolsupply.com
PVC Pipe – Lowes/Home Depot

The theme for their conference was paper. They choose to use the material that was readily available to them (Recycled paper, cardboard) and make elements to decorate the conference with. They had 4 large areas that they were tasked (Stage, Green room, Resource (Store) area and outside gathering spaces) using the recycled paper theme.

Stage:
For the stage, they constructed the word LOVE and skinned it with corrugated cardboard. The structure was built out of wood using chipboard and 1×3 wood strips. They cut two letter shapes to build one letter, then ‘extrude’ the shapes with the 1×3 wood strips. they later skinned it with corrugated cardboard from past projects. Each letter was 4×4 feet.

Green Room:
This area they made paper strip hearts and hung vertical garland. Took the conference theme colors and integrated this within the centerpiece decor. They built this space up entirely using fold up table and chairs, pipe and drape and some interior layout design.

Tube Wall (Outside Space)
They were fortunate to find a vendor who donated several hundred tubes. They cut the tubes in 24″ sections and assembled them together with bolts. They tested a bunch of different patterns and found a pattern that worked engineering-wise with the different sized tubes (6″, 8″, 12″, 24″). Once assembled, they painted the inside the colors of the conference. Tube walls were approx. 4×8 feet.

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Photography © Mat Fretschel (http://www.matfretschel.com/)

He saw the “Beautiful Thorns” and “Crowing Achievement” designs on CSDI and wanted something like that for Easter. He ordered online pool noodles (10 regular sized, 9 extra large 4″ dia, and about 20 regular sized, solid without a hole). He made 2 rings of each the large and small, connecting them with wood dowels. Brian carved them with a hot knife – 12″ to 18″ pieces of the solid noodles for the thorns.

The thorns were glued in a notch (cut with the hot knife) with gorilla glue. He used a couple cans of great stuff to add texture and help hold the rings together, and painted with several coats of different colors of brown paint. The cross was 3 layers of 2″ foamboard with the top layer chiseled up to make it rough and then painted brown with a black glaze. The fabric they had from a previous set. The cost was about $180 for the noodles and $100 for the foam plus glue and paint which he had on hand.

Their 2013 Easter concept was based around the idea of string (or yarn). Pulling, stretching, tying and sagging.

Main Stage:
Large balloons (26″ dia) were repeatedly wound and tied with starch soaked yarn. After the yarn had dried, they popped the balloon to reveal the shape.

Transition Space:
They have a large hallway leading from their classrooms to the back of church. They rented a large tent for service overflow, and that hallway space connected the main church to the tent. They wanted the space to be visually interesting as people walked from one space to another. Using the same idea of string, they attached screws into the wall at random varying points (about 4-6′ above floor). The screws were used as points for the string to be stretched from one to another. They also applied this theme to their flats using the same method. They had two different flat styles, hollow frame flat and a solid flat.

Lobby:
The team made wooden frames and mirrored the same method/process that was used on the flats and hung these frames like paintings in the lobby. A very talented youth volunteer (Mariah Cadena) developed the nail signs using a typeface that was custom designed.

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Photography ©Mat Fretschel

Tyrone was going for a rock set/tomb for their Easter Sunday services. He made the whole thing from paper.

The top frame was a thine fence pipe and he attached cut cardboard boxes on top to attach the paper to. To make the stones he took white paper and cut different size then crumbled them up and uncrumbled it. He stapled it to the cardboard and painted each stone one at a time using stone paint and black paint. The whole set cost $160.

They took pallets and braced them together on the backside with 1×1′s. They were stacked 3 high, 2 high, and 1 high. There were words stapled onto the pallets. They used blank newspaper rolls and cut out the letters using a projector. Next, they spray painted the letters and made all the words different color variations.

There was a lighting fixture attached to the top of each pallet section. It was an incandescent lighting fixture they bought from Lowe’s with a tin hood attached. The pallets were braced to the floor with 2×4′s.

They constructed the cross from 6mm mdf board, all screwed together, gap filled and painted. They braced it at the back to make a 3 meter tall free standing cross. The words were simply vinyl lettering attached to clear perspex suspended from the roof with fishing line.

A lot of lighting was used in conjunction with a smoke machine to give a cloudy wispy feeling.

They also created some footage to project before each event to set the scene, and to showcase the people from the church.

Technical info:
2x Christie LX605 projectors
Drapes: 5 foot wide. 22, 16, 10 foot high
Resolume Arena software (with masking and keystoning on a 2160 x 1152 composition)
Blackmagic Intensity Pro card for HDMI in
Content created in After Effects CS6, Premiere Pro CS6, and Cinema 4D (R13)

Their Easter 2013 design was their take on the “A Crowning Achievement” design. They created the crown the same way as prescribed in their description – the only difference was they hung it vertically. To do this, they created a round frame out of wood, roughly the size of the crown, and hung it with 100lb test cable from the frame.

They had the idea of using the crown as the “O” in the word “hope”. They created the additional letters out of Coroplast and wood. They cut the letters out of Coroplast first and then created wood frames, using 12 foot planks. They cut the planks longways into 2 inch sections and then notched out the inside of each cut plank, to accommodate the Coroplast letters. Once they were painted black they fit the letters into each frame. The letters were rather light so they hung them using a combination of I-hooks (on the wood frame), S-hooks (in the ceiling) and 40lb fishing line.

Once everything was hung they created a mask in ProPresenter, to allow projection on the letters H, P and E. They also lit them from above with American DJ Mega Bars (2 on each letter). They lit the crown with a combination of Mega Bars and Venue Thinpar 64′s.

The driving idea behind their easter services was that our God is unstoppable. To help visually impart that idea they wanted to create a scenic and lighting design that had a lot of movement and energy. They accomplished this in a couple of ways.

The Coroplast squares gave them a way to saturate the stage with color, and they were suspended in such a way that they could move freely on their center axis creating a real life motion background of sorts.

For the paint treatment on the floor they used basic forced perspective techniques to create the illusion of extra depth on their stage. They also pulled elements from the Easter logo to create fronts for the drums and keys risers.

Everything else was done through the lighting design and the awesome work of their video team.

Using mesh, LED cubes, and video cubes, they were able to give them a clean and fun look for there Easter services. They built the LED cubes out of PVC and used white fabric to stretch over them. On the video cubes, they are custom built frames with short throw projectors. Then, using Pro Presenter and TripleHead2Go’s they were able to get the image they wanted – to give it the look of a high dollar LED Cube.

1. Scattered Light – 2,283 views
   Matt Groves from The Naz in Grove City, Ohio
2. Wooden Horizontal - 2,267 views
   Chris Hughes from Life Church Franklin in Franklin, NC
3. Air Filtered - 2,253 views
   Benjamin Davis from dv8 Youth Ministries in Crowley, TX
4. Blinder Patterns – 1,835 views
   Travis Carpenter from Northview Church in Carmel, IN
5. Bumpy – 1,557 views
   Joseph Esarey from Community Bible Church in Mansfield, Ohio
6. Vid Grid – 1,485 views
   John Tabor with the  Dare 2 Share Tour
7. Big Baller - 1,417 views
   Andrew Hunt and his crew from Blue Ridge Community Church in Forest, VA
8. Scattered Coroplast – 1,412 views
   David Gilkey from Lifepoint Church in White Plains, KY
9. Midsummer Night’s Porch - 1,406 views
   Jason Lee from Renaissance Church in Providence, RI
10. Star Grid – 1,386 views
    Lance Tucker from The Vineyard Community in Johnstown, OH

Great job, stage designers!

The skyscraper buildings were made out of foam board with vellum paper attached to the back of the windows. 4×8 wooden frames with 2″ hole straps on each side of the frames. The buildings were put through pipe and poles. The black died buildings were bought from Stumps party website | still of night theme.

They added other objects such as park benches, fake foliage, and street lamps to create the ‘park feel’. At the end of the stage, they placed 2×4 foam board pieces painted like grass with flowers. The foam board was slipped into 2-2×4 wood pieces (screwed).

Theme: “What is your Anything?”

The banner at the left was a simple banner on foamcore. The letters at the front were 2″ pink insulation hand cut and hand painted. IU logo was large format on gatorboard. Ring of lights was 60 satin bulbs (4 strings of 15) mounted on a ring of plywood. Total budget: less than $1,000.

On Easter Sunday they started a new series called ‘RE’ (the idea building off the prefix ‘re-’) dealing with the Re-surrection, Re-Do’s, Re-Start’s, etc.

They wanted to create 2 things:
1. a backdrop for Quarter 2 of 2013 (Spring) that would allow them to maximize the vibe and feel of spring, which is lots of bright color.
2. They wanted to create 2 sets of letters that tied the design to the series. One set for the foyer/ entryway to their auditorium and the second for their platform

Backdrop:
8 – 4×8 sheets of 3m corrugated fluteboard (coroplast)
- They cut the sheets in half with a utility knife
150 ft of Black Paracord
- They used the paracord to hang the squares from the trussing their screen hangs from (~3ft off their back wall)
- They created a 10 inch gap/ border around each square and around the screen and attached the squares to each other using the paracord.

Foam Letters (Platfom):
The idea here was to create clean, simple letters that would tie to the letters in the foyer but be at the opposite end of the spectrum, clean, refined, and pure. Again, tying into the message series.

4 – 4×8 sheets of 1inch thickness foam board
- They cut 2 of each letter and then 4inch spacers that were used around the letters to glue them together
- The letters were painted white to reflect whatever light we put on them
- Once letters were assembled, we used white duct tape to reinforce seems
- We re-purposed 2 Christmas light strands we used in our Christmas/ Quarter 1 set inside of the letters; 1 set in each letter. The sides of each letter were left open other than the spacers. After adding the lights, this gave the letters a silhouette-look
- Lastly we used a white transparent/ translucent soft fabric to wrap the letters (covering any seems/ tape, etc. and the edges to also soften the glow of the inside lights.

Pallet Letters (Foyer)
They created these letters to give people something to pass by/ look at before entering. The idea was to elicit a question in their minds that they could bring up as the service/ sermon/ and series continued. For these letters theywere going for an old, aged, roughed up, worn look.

2 – 4×8 sheets of plywood (created a template for the letters)
- They drew the letters on the plywood and cut them out to attach the pallet wood to

5-7 wooden pallets they picked up at a local company who gave them away free

12 – 1×2’s 8ft long
- They used these to reinforce the letters on the backside, stabilizing the frame
- They also used these to create an easel-like backing so that the letters would stand upright in the foyer
- Lastly, they used a torch and burned the edges to add to the aged/ worn look.

They were able to accomplish this for ~$300.

They used two different diameters of noodles. The thicker of the two (3 1/4″ diameter) were used to run up the center of the cross and the thiner (2 1/2″ diameter) were used for the other two strands of thorns. They notched the ends of the noodles and attached them with contact cement along with tape until they were dry. Then they wrapped the cross with the long noodle pieces and and used a heat gun to help form them so they would hold their shape.

They marked where the thorns would be attached, took pictures to document for reassembly, numbered them so they would remember the correct order for reassembly and then dismantled the piece. They cut the thorns out of the same noodle diameter with a band saw, shaped them with a hot knife and then finished them with a heat gun. The heat gun really worked well to create a smooth surface. They attached each of the thorns with a piece of wire and caulk (pl300). Then they painted them.

Once they were dry they reassembled the thorns around the cross using their pics as a reference.

The whole project cost about $60 in material.

They achieved the effect using fluorescent paint and black lights. Since fluorescent paint is so expensive, they tried creating a “homemade” fluorescent paint from some recipes they found online. The recipes said to mix laundry detergent with optical brightener with regular household paint, but that didn’t work at all. So they had to break down and buy the expensive stuff. They bought a gallon of pink, orange, blue, green, and yellow of Rosco’s fluorescent paint at Stage Lighting Store.

The artwork was painted on 40 sheets of 4′x8′ plywood (which they bought on sale). The plywood was first painted black, then strokes of “crayola” colored household paint, then white where the artwork was going to be, then the fluorescent paint on top of the white to help it glow better.

The piano was an actual upright piano they found on craigslist for $150. They bought it, gutted it, and placed a digital keyboard in the shell. This allowed them to paint the piano itself, have a “vintage grungy” look, and still have amazing sound from the digital keyboard.

Luckily their kids/youth ministries had quite a few black lights. They ended up only needing to buy 6 LED blacklight bars. In total 17 blacklights were used.

Overall this project ended up costing around $3200. Supplies used are below…

- 40 sheets of 4’8′ plywood
- 6 gallons of flat black paint
- 3 gallons of flat “crayola” colored paint
- 5 gallons of fluorescent paint
- 17 blacklights
- 4 cans of fluorescent spray paint

This was for their February high school retreat. The theme was Overcome. For the mountain, they built the frames out of 2×4′s and stapled strips of Coroplast on each side of the mountain. The mountains ranged from 8′ to 4′ tall. On the sides of the stage they used circular projector screens where they used the masking program in Propresenter.

Justin brought about the change in two stages to keep from freaking people out. Having a guest choir gave him the perfect opportunity to add the stage elements, then after that he changed the beige walls to black walls with colored lights.

He made 2 frames that were 3′x7′ (inside measurements) and attached crumpled aluminum screening inside. Instead of landscape fabric he just painted the frames black. He used a textured paint on the wood surface to hide the possible wood grain look, then painted over with a flat black spray paint.

They sheet rocked over the very back wall (behind the projection screen) and painted that wall black. (They took down a 4′x8′ landscape painting just above the baptismal.) Then they hung the 2 aluminum screen frames on the wall and were ready for the guest choir.

Justin then made a cross out of 1″x8″ pine, with 1″x4″ pine turned on its side to create a “box”. The cross was 8′ tall and 4′ 7″ wide. He painted it black as well, then stapled more aluminum screening to the inside.

Finally he made 2 light boxes. He framed up 1′ square x 4′ tall frames and painted them white. Then he attached a piece of 3/4″ plywood on the bottom for some weight and to have a solid surface on the bottom. 1/4″ ply was on the back and he added 5″x9″ access panels at the bottom to allow him to take the lights in and out as needed. He wrapped the outside in white spandex fabric and then attached 1/4″x1″ trim pieces that he painted black to hide the staples. He then installed a flat LED par in each light that has Red, Green, Blue, Amber, and White LED’s (Blizzard Puck).

Two weeks later, phase two started when they painted the entire back wall black after church on Sunday. They hung the cross about 2′ off the back wall using 3/8″ wire rope to give it some dimension. Then they moved the framed panels to the walls on the sides of the cross and put the light boxes in front. The left over palms from Palm Sunday finished off the look.

In all this was around the $600 mark in supplies, including the two new LED lights.

Their pastor wanted to talk about the passion of Christ – from the Garden of Eden, to the Garden of Gethsemane, then to Crucifixion, and finally to Hell. They decided to go with trees because they thought we could saturate them with color as well as make them really scary for those dark scenes of the story. They didn’t have permission to cut down full trees, so instead they went with branches painted white.

After they were cut and painted, the branches were attached to a wooden square base and then stood up and held up with aircraft cable. The metallic frames on either side of the screen were basic aluminum screen door material just scrunched and hung on wood frames.

Their video screen was 20×30 and they ended up using some atmospheric images on their screen during the sermon to create more of a theatrical stage feel.

The lighting consisted of Morpheus Faders on PAR 64 cans, Source 4′s with all types of foliage breakups, Apollo Multiform Spots and Washes, Chauvet Colorrails, Martin Mac 600′s and 700′s, GAM Reel FX with Flame Gobo Reel, and a few generic flame pots from their local party store. All of this show was programmed and run on an ETC Gio lighting console.

They repurposed their wooden planks for this series. The ladders of wooden planks (which were painted white for Christmas) were taken out to the parking lot where they beat them with sledge hammers, pipe wrenches, blow torches, and spray paint to look apologetically destroyed.

The carnage was then brought inside and suspended from the pipe grid with black chain in a way that made it appear as if the planks were growing out of the wreckage. A lot of haze and CB12 LED’s screwed right into the planks to self up-light itself made for a very surreal and dramatic presentation.

They also purchased 24 sheets of 2′x4′ plastic corrugated roofing material which was spray painted black and gray to give it the appearance of aged corrugated metal. This was suspended from the upstage batten as a cyclorama behind the planks which was up-lit with MEGAbar LED’s for color changing.

This set was done for $0 since everything was re-purposed from previous sets.

Since their church doesn’t have lighting, Jenifer was looking for a way to incorporate color into their stage design. So she bought duct tape in two shades of the four colors of the logo for their series for $29.34. It took one person and a ladder 35 minutes to do the back drop and another 15-20 minutes to do the sides.

It also made the day for a few children of the teardown team who loved collecting the colorful duct tape afterwards.

10 sheets of 3/8″ plywood ripped into 4″x48″ strips and mounted onto 2×3 “ladders” painted black. Each of the planks were stained or painted in a variety of fall colors. Once assembled, each tower was tipped up and just leaned against the black stage wall, with blocks screwed into the floor to prevent slippage. Decorative LED branches and branch rope were woven into the planks and plugged into the stage dimmers for added warmth.

Each tower was up-lit with a combination of LED MEGAbars and CB12′s.

Material cost was roughly $600 for wood, and $800 for LED branches (which were purchased previously and re-used for this set). Planks would be re-purposed for Christmas by being painted white, and then once again in January for their “End of Days” Armageddon sermon series (both coming up).

They used hammered metal/aluminum screen to make their design. They used 2x2s to create their frames, spray painted the fronts/sides black, wrapped those in black landscape fabric, and then covered each in brite aluminum screening. They made different sizes and shaped frames. They hung the frames from 2×4′s they nailed around the top of the stage with eye hooks, clips, and chains. This kept them from nailing or attaching anything to the walls.

They used 6 Chauvet COLORband PiX lights, four in the middle and one on each side to light the frames. They painted their back wall dark gray (Knight’s Armour – Behr paint). They don’t have regular screens for their video projection but rather use screen paint. They painted a 4-inch light gray border around that. They purchased a new black metal pulpit from Podiums Direct. The frames, hooks, chains all cost around $700. Podium $600. Lights $1600.

They were inspired by Air Filtered for a benefit concert they held. They took the towers and combined them into a staggered wall surrounding the drum cage. The Chauvet LEDs behind the walls made for a great back splash. Their senior pastor liked them so much they kept them for future services.

For their February series, Matters of the Heart, they went with hearts and ribbons.

They draped red tule from their Coroplast columns and used their stage lights to reflect red. Then they cut out black hearts from poster board and taped them on the Coroplast columns. In the middle they printed a big banner that said Matters of the Heart.

They had most of the material, so this project cost them about $25.

They wanted an old-school camp-meeting look for their stage but in a modern context.

They made the boxes from 4×8 sheets of luan plywood ripped into 4″ strip at various length. The whole stage was on risers leftover from fall and Christmas stages. Inside the boxes they wired regular light sockets to boards and ran to a portable dimmer.

The first week they debuted the stage they used large white poly silks to create a tent feel for the camp meeting. But the stage was so large when they turned off the lighting for speakers the silks were still seen. So they removed those and added a couple sheer panels that were in the curtain material clearance section at Jo-anns Fabrics. Both panels were $6.

The mourners benches were made from 1×6″ ‘s with corrugated metal sheets for fun and contrast. Total design cost around $350.