Broadcast Design Increases Reach

Change is not always bad ... or even tricky because it takes some getting used to. Sometimes it's an absolute blessing. 

Such is the case at Hope Fellowship Church in Frisco, Texas, its leadership reports. The church completed renovation of its Frisco East Campus just in time for Easter 2018. In addition to renovating all of the children’s areas and adding space for more ministries, the project increased seating capacity at Frisco East with the addition of a 40,000-square-foot, 1,700-seat auditorium.

Designed by Small Architects of Edmond, Okla., and built by Mycon General Contractors Inc. of Dallas, the project took close to a year to complete, but benefits were worth waiting for, church staff reports. The expansion not only provided a significant increase in the much needed space for worship, but its design and new technology presented an opportunity to significantly improve the venue’s effectiveness as the church’s main broadcast campus.

Getting bigger in the Lone Star State

Derek Milton, Hope Fellowship’s technical production director, headed up the acquisition of new technology for the expansion for the Frisco East campus, as well as technology at the church’s satellite campuses, Frisco West and nearby McKinney.

... attention to the design of the new auditorium was key to improving the church’s popular broadcasts of Saturday evening and two Sunday morning services.

“We strive to maintain a philosophy of excellence,” Milton says, “and that applies to our use of our space and technology for worship.” In particular, attention to the design of the new auditorium was key to improving the church’s popular broadcasts of Saturday evening and two Sunday morning services. In total, Milton estimates that Hope Fellowship services impact 6,000-8,000 worshippers each week.

Milton estimates that Hope Fellowship services impact 6,000-8,000 worshippers each week.

Hearing is believing

To handle the design of technology for the new auditorium at Frisco East, Milton reached out to Clark of Los Angeles, where system design engineer Glenn Setchfield applied his audio expertise to the design of a new audio system. Milton and Setchfield worked closely to come up with the best possible audio design for the auditorium’s wide floor plan that put most of the seating on the floor with five sections of raised seating across the back wall.

“We listened to a lot of different speaker manufacturers and consoles,and talked about our existing gear,” Milton reports. The team ultimately agreed that a new Martin Multi-Cellular Loudspeaker Array [MLA] would be ideal for the space. The compact MLA’s cellular array format with six built-in Class-D amplifier channels per enclosure, onboard DSP and digital networking provided directivity, output and frequency response needed to address Setchfield’s design for the room. The addition of Martin MLD downfill loudspeakers and MLX subwoofers with dual long excursion voice coil neodymium drivers--that can deliver a total of 8500W peak output--complete the installation.

The team ultimately agreed that a new Martin Multi-Cellular Loudspeaker Array [MLA] would be ideal for the space.

In addition to new arrays and sound treatment across the back wall to minimize unwanted audio reflections, the FOH audio system design specified a Digico SD12 mixing console to provide Hope Fellowship engineers with up to 72 input channels, 36 aux/sub-group busses, an LR/LCR master bus, and a 12x8 processing matrix and a full complement of effects. For musicians on stage, the team decided to replace monitor wedges with a new monitoring technology, the Klang:fabrik 3D in-ear monitor mixing system.

A key feature of the Klang monitoring strategy is to provide musicians at Hope Fellowship the unique ability to graphically design a user-friendly, three-dimensional personal mix. Setchfield gives credit to Minton and his team for the critical choices of the console and monitoring system. “They approached us really excited about the products,” says Setchfield, "having heard them demo’d at a tradeshow.” The result met Minton’s expectations, “Together,” he says, “they sound amazing.”

Space + video components

In addition to better audio for the worshippers at Frisco East, the new auditorium provided more space on stage and an opportunity to integrate Hope Fellowship’s existing video equipment with new stage lighting for better video production. Clark’s Paul Green offered a new lighting design that would provide both dramatic, concert-style lighting for music and worship, but also more even light across the stage to enhance video production. “We experimented with various front washes,” recalls Milton, “in an effort get our lighting to be as even as possible.” In addition to two trusses of front lighting, Green’s dramatic lighting design for musical performances features hazed lighting from many locations on stage including moving lights on the stage floor and accents from vertical pole-mounted backlighting.

Clark’s Paul Green offered a new lighting design that would provide both dramatic, concert-style lighting for music and worship, but also more even light across the stage to enhance video production.

For mixing audio broadcasts that will stream online and be fed to satellite campuses, the church added a Waves eMotion LV1 software-based live mixing console along with a SoundGrid Extreme server to its existing video suite. The 32-bit floating-point mix engine employed by the LV1 allows the team to mix with a high plugin count (as many as eight compatible plugins per channel) with extremely low latency. Additionally, the ability to create custom layers provides options for the engineers at Frisco East that facilitate quick changes and an improved workflow.

For mixing audio broadcasts that will stream online and be fed to satellite campuses, the church added a Waves eMotion LV1 software-based live mixing console along with a SoundGrid Extreme server to its existing video suite.

With greater seating capacity and a larger stage area with reconfigurable riser sections for drums, keyboards, and supporting musicians, additional visual upgrades were needed to be sure that every seat in the new auditorium had a great view. “Obviously, moving up in the size of the venue, meant moving up to new projectors and screens,” Milton notes. Leveraging the wide front wall, the large areas at either side of the stage were painted flat black and reserved for screens that would provide ample space for the video projection of graphics and IMAG. Projectors are on pole mounts dropped from the ceiling and located to preserve sight lines of the raised rear seating sections.

Leveraging the wide front wall, the large areas at either side of the stage were painted flat black and reserved for screens that would provide ample space for the video projection of graphics and IMAG.

Milton’s productions at Hope Fellowship typically undergo one major design change each year with smaller changes as the team becomes inspired. “We get some of our inspiration from award shows,” he says. “We look particularly at the artist performances, as they seem to push the envelope.” While engaging, these shows can be dramatic and cutting edge, but Minton says that his goals for worship technology are not about the “wow.” “Our primary goal,” he says, “is to be engaging, but not distracting. Our new technology helps us to do just that.”