#DECADE, part 1

If you’ve been following my twitter for the past few months, you’ve seen me refer to the most challenging project I’ve ever been involved with or led, New Life Church’s tenth anniversary service called DECADE.  My role for this event was to lead the execution of the production at Verizon Arena in Little Rock, with 9 contracted production staff, 21 local union stagehands, riggers, and electricians, and 41 volunteers from the New Life Church Wired team.  I’m going to take a few posts to detail much of the process that went into this event in hopes it will be helpful to other churches considering undertaking a similar type of event.

To celebrate ten years as a church, I first learned of the vision last summer to host a service where we could have everyone from our 5 campuses together under one roof.  In Arkansas, there are only several venues that could hold that size of a crowd so we quickly knew we were headed to Verizon.  The arena has an in-the-round capacity of just over 16,000 or just over 13,000 in an end-stage configuration.

The most important decision was the production company we would partner with for audio, video, and lighting systems.  I knew all along we would need to hire someone – there was no way we had the kind of inventory, resources, or expertise necessary to even consider doing the event ourselves.  In early fall I interviewed 6 different options, both local and national.  From the document presented to our executive team when we made our final choice, my criteria in selecting a provider included:

- Single point of contact production company to be solely responsible for entire event (audio/video/lighting)

- Large worship team (including ensemble) = 48 channel audio system with separate monitor desk, large scale arena PA system (d&b, Meyer, etc)

- Lighting system to deliver similar experience to what we create at the GLR campus (modest moving lights, bright colorful stage, excellent lighting for video)

- 2 large screens on each side of stage for video playback & IMAG (21’ x 12’, 12k lumens minimum).  Lyrics to be keyed at the bottom of the screen over live video during worship.

- Multi-camera IMAG system with Jib for side screens & capture

- Multi-track audio recording and video capture capability so we can capture the event for potential future release (worship CD recording, highlight reel to web, etc)

In the end, we hired Majestic Productions based in Summitville, IN and this was by far the best decision we’ve ever made.  During the interview and bidding process it was clear that Ryan Bates and his team “got” our event in ways others missed.  Their bid was the most complete, including things not even on my radar that I would need such as a 4 channel com system, confidence monitoring, video distribution gear to the building, etc.  Ryan and Majestic acted as our single point of contact and him and I spent much time on the phone from October until the event in February.

Even if you’ve never heard of Majestic, I promise you that you are familiar with their work.  Since 1997, the Majestic team has provided production for events such as Passion, Catalyst conferences and Catalyst West , Orange, Youth Specialties, Chris Tomlin, Jeremy Camp, Gaither Homecoming, Hillsong United, and on and on.  For an event like DECADE, it was important to me that our partner be completely comfortable with what we were trying to accomplish as I knew the timeframe for rehearsal would be tight, we hoped to utilize as many of our Wired volunteers as possible, and expertise was everything in getting it right the first time.  It was comforting to our whole team that while this event was a huge deal to us, it was just another service to the Majestic team.

Over this series we’re going to first talk about production systems, then crew, the documentation we created, and finally some media samples from the service.  Come back tomorrow for the next post…

Woman Conference 2010

Well as you can tell, the flow of posts has recently come to a halt.  While waiting for things to kick back in again soon, I just experimented with my first official foray into the LD chair in addition to mixing audio and have some photos to share.  Newlifechurch.tv recently hosted our first ever 2-day Woman conference and I programmed all of the visual looks for each of the sessions during rehearsals in addition to mixing audio for the actual event.  It was a rewarding experience to be able to use a completely different part of the brain but I also confirmed that audio is the lifegiving seat for me.

Enjoy!  I’m posting an audio clip from the session 1 opener as well as the photo gallery.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Behind the scenes with Rascal Flatts

This post has been sitting in my drafts literally for months and for some reason I never finished it off to post it.  Mindy and I had a great opportunity last February to hang out with the audio crew on the road with Rascal Flatts when their tour came through Detroit.  Jon Jon Garber (Flatts FOH) was a gracious host for the day and the entire experience was a great case study in excellent live production.  Please enjoy my photos and commentary of that day…

Ch…ch…ch…changes…

I mentioned this announcement last week on Twitter & Facebook but wanted to elaborate a bit, so here we go!

I’m excited to announce a new chapter in my professional life and for our family.  After 4 years as the audio director at Kensington Community Church in Troy, MI, God has called us to a new adventure with New Life Church in Conway, AR.  For those of you not familiar with New Life (I’d never heard of them either before we started this journey), the church is 9 years old, has 5 campuses all over Arkansas that average 7,000 people per weekend with more on the way, and has awesome leadership and vision we’re looking forward to being a part of.  My new job will draw from my experience at KCC in leading all things audio related and joining a talented & gifted staff and creative team.

The journey leading us to this decision first began 8 months ago.  Since that time, at every turn, our life has led back to New Life.  I was never sure if I would work for another church besides Kensington because it was hard to imagine another place would be as great of a fit spiritually, creatively, and personally for our family.  It was especially wild to be visiting this church a few months ago for the weekend having no idea what to expect when we’d get there.  As God always does, we were completely blown away.  Every excuse I had made in my mind ahead of time of why New Life wouldn’t fit was out the window.  The talent and artistry I experienced was inspiring, we loved everyone we met and spent time with – so friendly and welcoming, the volunteer audio guys currently serving are rock stars with such great attitudes and dedication to the ministry, Rick Bezet, the senior pastor, is the real deal – gifted communicator, down to earth, and approachable, an instant connection with the guys I’ll be working closest with (Brandon, Neil, & Phil), etc etc etc.  I could go on and on.  In my limited life experience, opportunities come along all the time but the doors normally close on their own as quickly as they open.  This time, the door kept being opened, often times not even by my doing.

It has been clear for a while now that God was using my experiences at Kensington to prepare us for an adventure that would require us to completely leap out in faith and trust Him with our security.  This step represents that jump off the deep end for us.  Already God has been so faithful, providing us a brand new house to rent, bringing a buyer for our current house in Michigan, and resolving countless details along the way.  I’m humbled to be able to put my money where my mouth is, following God even when it is scary and doesn’t make sense to some.

There is lots to be done between now and mid-June when we will pack up the cars and head southwest.  Prayers for this transition would be greatly appreciated by our entire family.  For as excited as we are, it is bitter sweet and emotional to leave everything we know here – our families, a church we both love, and great friends.  I am so thankful for my time at Kensington, the lifelong relationships that have been formed, and the way I’ve been shaped artistically, creatively, and personally by this place.  This time has been a great gift.

A new chapter…here we come!

VIDEOBLOG: The Making of Venue

It is no secret that I’m quite a fan of Digidesign’s Venue line of live audio consoles.  There are certainly other tools out there but Digi has proven to be an excellent fit with the kind of art we create at Kensington and the way I am most effective mixing.

Check out a really cool video from Digidesign on the Making of the Venue platform.  One of the best parts of partnering with Digi is the accessibility of the leadership team and this video is a great example.  I’m not aware of another console manufacturer with a more public and accessible team.

Total Production: U2

I ran across this feature article in downloadable form that is by far the most in depth information chronicling the U2 360 Tour.  New details about the concept and creation, as well as each of the major systems of the tour.  If you’re interested in mind-blowing production, this article is worth the read!

Download it here. (10 mb .pdf)