Our new stage
I’ve been talking about our new stage for a while and some of you have been asking about photos so here’s the best I can do right now -
Here are a few pictures of what our platform looked like before the renovation – remember that our auditorium is a gym and every week we set up about 400 chairs, set the stage for the worship team AND set up 6 portable stage boxes that build the lower portion of our stage. I’ve pointed these boxes out on the photos below -
If you want a better view of any of those photos just click on them and a bigger one will open up.
Okay – so that was the before with some of the wonderful features of our stage pointed out. Why did we need to change things? A few reasons -
- The amount of work we were putting in each week to set up our stage was getting ridiculous. We weren’t able to leave any of our A/V stuff set up – because of the short depth of the stage and the crazy amount of use that our gym gets during the week we had to tear down after Sunday morning and then come back in on Friday evening to set up before practice. Add to that the strain of moving those “portable” stage boxes (they really aren’t that portable – it takes two guys and a dolly to move them) several times a week was getting very old, very fast. We needed a better solution.
- The footprint and layout of our stage meant that we were very limited in any kind of set design or creative stage set up. We were basically stuck to the same format every weekend – drums in front of the tank, piano off to one side, bass off to the other, singers down in front with the guitar or keyboard player squeezed in wherever there is room. Not cool.
- The look of the stage was very dated – the back wall was purple, the carpet was green, the tank was finished with that beautiful oak panelling. Our building was built in 1992 and its age is starting to show – we needed a fresher look that fits with the contemporary vibe of our church and our services.
So the work isn’t totally done but we are far enough along that the stage is usable on Sunday morning. Actually in these photos you can see some of our A/V techs terminating cable so that we can use our new stage boxes. Here are some photos of where we are right now -
If you’re wondering about the boxes where we’ve placed the plumbing and drain for the new tank, the box on the opposite side of the stage is where our new sub is going to go. We decided to build the stage symmetrical but leave that side box open – after using our tank a few weeks ago we figured out that we needed a better plumbing solution than we had thought. The idea of installing that stuff in the empty side box was a beautiful solution that made sense for everyone.
The last photo is a little tough to figure out but I tried to show how much stage space we have gained by removing the tank. It’s a shot from the side and I’m basically standing in one of the alcoves that used to exist below the walls that covered the stairs leading to the tank.
Also, showing the retractable sections like that is a little misleading. When they are pulled out full there will actually be about 2′ of those sections still underneath the upper stage so they will come out 8′ toward the middle of the room. We are going to come up with a solution that will allow those sections to be bolted securely to the floor once they are in place – right now they are on heavy duty casters and they can be moved with a little momentum if you’re standing on top of them.
So there you go – let me know if you’ve got any questions or if I can take some more pictures to clarify anything.
This looks like a big improvement in terms of space and ambiance.
Stoney Creek Baptist in London (which I can see from the back door of my church) has a cool extending portion of their stage – but instead of sliding out from underneath, it rotates out and then locks into position. (It pivots at the centre – I can’t remember exactly how it works.)
How do you tame all the hard surface acoustic bounce in that room???
Bob – We visited Stoney Creek on our trip to London a couple of months ago – we are using the same AVL consultants as they did. We liked their booth design but thought their stage was very high – we also didn’t like the single screen setup they have, it cut the stage too much. The architects of SCBC go to our church and did our building as well – a huge blessing to have them in-house.
Our room is definitely not ideal – we have acoustic panels around the whole perimeter of the room and will be adding more panels to the back wall of the stage shortly. Once the room is full of chairs and people it’s not as bad as you’d think – getting new PA in there will help alot too
That’s what I was looking for. It’ll take me a little while to process what I’m seeing, but you did a really good job of explaining it. I love the retractable stage
Looks great. I know it’s been a long time coming!
Bob,
If you want some details and pictures on the acoustic panels we developed I can email them to you.
Basically we had a reverb of around 3.5 seconds with the original treatment. We have now got that down to about 1.7 and hopefuly once we treat the back stage wall it will drop again.
We begged borrowed and stole a bunch of ideas for panels and came up with our own design that would both do the job and stand up to a multi-use gymnatorium.
By the way I am one of the sound guys at Chris’ church (not in the pictures above though)
Hi Chris,
Found your blog through google blog search and figured out when I got here, we hang out at a lot of the same blogs.
I am always looking to meet new blogging friends.
Are you a portable church?
Did you all build your platforms?
Do you do stage/set designs?
Very interesting post especially with the pics.
Chris,
That’s pretty rock n’ roll. I love the creativity and the willingness to ditch a setup that was not working. I’ve been in a ton of churches that would gripe, “You can’t get rid of the baptismal!!!!!!!”
I’m fully convinced that the kingdom of God is hindered the most by the sin of holding too tightly to things that should be let go.
There used to be actual wars in Church history of the moving of furniture in the church. So, indeed my hats off to you guys for your creativity. Very nice.