Radiant Church is a thriving multi-site located in Tampa, Florida. Planted by Pastor Aaron Burke and his wife Katie in 2013, Radiant Church has quickly spread across five locations in the Tampa Bay area. With an attendance approaching 4,000, it placed number 5 in Outreach Magazine’s 2020 list of Fastest-Growing Churches in America. The church has continually invested in AVL technology to present vibrant worship and engaging teaching, both for those gathering in person and watching online.
The latest project was a complete technical revamp of the dedicated space used for ministry to fourth and fifth graders at the church’s flagship South Tampa location. The technical supplier for the new audio, video and lighting system was Atmospheric Productions, a company with a long history of working with Radiant Church. Owned and operated by business partners Andre T Miller and Jay Parmenter, who have over 20 years of collective industry experience, the company was established in 2015 and specializes in church integration projects.
“Radiant Church has been a client of Atmospheric Productions since the very beginning,” explains Miller, “however up until now most of the work has been smaller upgrades and replacements. This was the first project for them where we essentially designed and installed a complete AVL system for a space from the ground up. The technical setup in this room was previously very basic, so we really started from scratch although we did utilize a few Mega 64 Profile Plus LED pars that were already there. The leadership at the church essentially said to us: ‘here’s a budget; we need front light, house light, effect lighting and we want it to look cool for the kids!’”
With the church’s remit in mind, the first fixture Miller settled on for the project was ADJ’s Focus Beam LED. To create the desired ‘cool’ atmosphere for the kids, he wanted to be able to shoot razor-sharp beams around the space and the compact, LED-powered Focus Beam LED, which had been launched just a few months before the initial consultation on this project began, perfectly fit the bill. Miller chose to position two on the stage itself to shoot beams upwards and to rig another pair to the ceiling in the center of the room.
“I didn’t want all the lighting to be on stage, I wanted to have some beams out in the room, over the kids’ heads,” states Miller. “I think this helps them to feel more involved with the worship and everything that is happening. The fixtures also work well for the pre-service; the kids love to chase the beams around when they’re set to do a figure-of-eight movement on the floor! The output from the Focus Beam LED is massive; being so small and only 80W, it’s almost unreal! I’ve used them in this church’s main auditorium and they are bright enough to hold their own in that large space on a big rig, so in this small room they look incredible! I also love that you can overlay the prisms; one of my favorite effects is to rotate them in opposite directions, you don’t have to move them very fast to create a crazy fun effect. They really are great fixtures.”
The other fixture that Miller settled on early in the planning process was ADJ’s Focus Spot 4Z, a moving head spot popular in the house of worship market. Four of these units are rigged to an upstage bar with the Mega 64 Profile Plus units that were already in situ positioned in between. Offering a compact design, expansive feature-set and an output in excess of 5,000 lumens, the Focus Spot 4Z is designed for creating everything from energetic mid-air effects to subtle break-apart projections. It features fast and smooth movement, independent color and GOBO wheels, removable and rotatable GOBOs, two rotating prisms (5-facet linear and 6-facet circular), as well as motorized focus and zoom.
“Having zoom on a fixture of this size and price-point is very important,” enthuses Miller, “as it really steps up what can be achieved in a smaller room like this. If you throw a prism on and zoom the fixture all the way out, it really does fill the space. But it can also work well to create a tight spot and sharp aerial effects. The 200W LED really throws a lot of light out, in fact I don’t think there’s another light in the same price range that can compete on output with the Focus Spot 4Z.”
The lighting package on stage is completed by six of ADJ’s UB 12H linear LED wash fixtures. Four of these units are lined along the back of the stage, with two further fixtures positioned at either side of the stage pointing inwards. Another fixture that is popular with church integrators, the UB 12H is powered by twelve 6-Watt HEX (RGBWA+UV) LEDs and features magnetic interlocking end caps that make it easy to quickly and precisely align multiple units to create a continuous line of LEDs.
“The UB 12H bars really serve two purposes,” explains Miller. “The room is only around 11’ tall, so those four bars at the back really fill up the stage with color. Then the two on the side provide color fill to give depth to the lighting of the pastors and musicians on stage. Not only do they create nice primary color washes, but the UV element of the HEX LEDs allow us to create some fun moments on stage! I also like the individual pixel control; this allowed me to program some really nice dynamic effects by setting different LEDs to different colors and different intensities at different times. I’ve also found these bars to be reliable performers, we’ve used them on lots of projects and never had an issue with any of them.”
The final lighting product Miller specified for this project was ADJ’s compact, high output, low-power MOD STQ LED wash fixture. Featuring seven 8-Watt 4-in-1 RGBW LEDs, this versatile fixture is fitted with a dual purpose scissor yoke, which can be used either as a hanging bracket or floor stand, and is also supplied with three interchangeable frost filters that allow the standard 17-degree beam angle to be extended to 20, 40 or even 60-degrees.
“We considered various different options for both front and house lighting, but in the end decided on the ADJ MOD STQ because of its flexible lens system,” explains Miller. “We used the 20-degree option for a tighter focused front light, with three fixtures positioned in the center of the room usually set to white and a further pair of fixtures positioned further out to allow their use as color fill. We then used the 60-degree option for fixtures that serve as house lights, which allows them to fill the whole room evenly. Being able to do multiple functions with the same fixture gives maximum flexibly to the church for the future, which is a huge thing in this market. The versatility of the MOD STQ is phenomenal!”
To complete the system, Atmospheric Productions supplied a Magma Prime hazer from ADJ’s sister company Magmatic. Miller also programmed a variety of different looks and effects that can be selected by the volunteer lighting techs who run the equipment on a weekly basis. Despite the small scale of the room and the relatively limited budget, Miller says Atmospheric Productions has delivered a concert-caliber lighting system that is extremely flexible and definitely covers all of the church’s requirements.
“The senior kids’ pastor was very excited when he first saw the new setup,” confirms Miller. “The ministry likes to keep things fresh and exciting for the students by having different themes throughout the year, so they decorate the space accordingly. This new lighting rig makes that super easy; they can completely change not only the stage lighting but the house lights too, to a color scheme that matches the current theme. The volunteer AV tech who usually runs the room absolutely loves it as well, every time I see him he tells me how good the lighting looks. To see how excited he is with the new setup is pretty cool for me as an integrator!”
Church
Radiant Church
Tampa, FL
www.weareradiant.com
Installation Company
Atmospheric Productions
Lighting Designer / Integrator
Andre T Miller
Gear List
4 x Focus Spot 4Z
4 x Focus Beam LED
3 x Mega 64 Profile Plus
6 x UB 12H
20 x MOD STQ
1 x Magmatic MAGMA PRIME
