ADJ automated luminaires were used extensively in the lighting rig for the recent Momentum Conference, a two-day Christian youth event in Springfield, Illinois. A combination of Focus Spot 7Z, Vizi Beam CMY and Focus Flex L19 fixtures were designed to create bold looks and vibrant effects to fill the arena venue. Organized by Illinois Student Ministries, the annual gathering welcomes church youth groups from across the state for teaching, worship and high-energy performances.This year’s event marked a milestone as Momentum returned to a full-scale arena setting at the BoS Center, a 7,700-seat venue in downtown Springfield. Featuring speakers Austin Westlake, Eliot Bland and Eric Hoffman, worship led by Skylar Miller and a performance from Christian hip-hop artist Miles Minnick, the conference was enhanced by a lighting design built around the ADJ fixtures.
Lighting Designer Alex Kanaris has been involved with Momentum for a quarter of a century, first taking on the role at 19 years old. Today, he leads the production through his company, Showco AV, a full-service AVL provider, which supplied all the lighting equipment and rigging for this year’s event.
Incorporated in 2003 as Automated Lighting Design with a focus on lighting, the company rebranded during the COVID-19 pandemic as Showco AV. It now offers complete audio, video and lighting support, as well as rigging and custom fabrication, for a wide variety of productions and events.
Following the pandemic, the Momentum Conference had been scaled back and hosted in large church auditoriums equipped with in-house AVL systems. This year’s return to a commercial arena presented both an exciting opportunity and a creative challenge.
“In recent years the event has been in churches which were set up with full AVL infrastructures – including LED walls – so we’ve used video content as the backdrop to the stage,” explains Alex. “For this first year back in an arena, the budget just wasn’t there for a video wall, so I had to come up with another way to make the set look good. I figured I’d throw a ton of movers at it and spread them out to fill the space. Where we would have had a giant LED wall upstage, we hung a truss mid-stage, about halfway up the trim, and filled it with beams and spots. It meant instead of a boring black backdrop, we could use beams and GOBO projections to create lots of different background looks. It worked out really well.”
Building a Big Look with Focus Spot 7Z
To generate texture, depth and dynamic background visuals, Alex deployed 18 ADJ Focus Spot 7Z moving head fixtures. These were evenly distributed across the upstage, downstage and mid-stage trusses — six fixtures on each.
Offering an output of 20,000 lumens from a 420-watt white LED engine with a native color temperature of 8000K, the Focus Spot 7Z provided the punch for arena-scale impact. With CMY color mixing, variable CTO, dual rotating GOBO wheels, an animation wheel, motorized zoom, focus and iris, along with rotating prisms and frost filters, the fixtures gave Alex an expansive creative toolkit.
“A couple of years ago we were going to invest in some spots from a ‘market-leading’ brand and my ADJ rep offered to bring a Focus Spot 7Z for us to compare it with,” Alex admits. “I told him he could, but there was no way I would be convinced. So, he brought it in and I totally changed my mind, both about the 7Z and my perception of ADJ as a brand. The quality of the GOBOs was very similar to the ‘A brand’ fixture, the output was actually a touch better, and the price was amazing in comparison. I decided to pull the trigger and bought 12 to try them out properly, and I haven’t looked back since. We’ve since invested in more 7Zs as well as other ADJ movers, which offer the same combination of quality and features paired with excellent value for money.”
For Momentum, the Focus Spot 7Z fixtures were instrumental in replacing the visual impact of a large LED wall. GOBO projections and aerial effects created layered backgrounds that shifted between high-energy worship moments and more intimate teaching segments.
High-Impact Beams with Vizi Beam CMY
To complement the spots and deliver tight aerial effects, 20 ADJ Vizi Beam CMY fixtures were integrated into the rig. Six units were positioned on both the upstage and downstage trusses, four on the mid-stage truss and one on each of four stage carts.
Powered by the Osram Sirius HRI 310W PRO discharge lamp, the Vizi Beam CMY produces a sharp 2-degree beam with quality optics and a large glass front lens. CMY color mixing, a 14-color wheel, 17-pattern GOBO wheel, dual rotating prisms, motorized focus and frost filter make it a versatile beam luminaire.
“The Vizi Beam CMY is great: powerful and versatile,” enthuses Alex. “The color mixing was huge for me, as most beam fixtures just have color wheels. Especially for slower songs, the ability to smoothly fade from one color to another is essential. I also love the circular prism, which gives you a totally different – wider – look. It allowed me to make them mimic the spots for certain looks.”
“In the expansive arena environment, the Vizi Beam CMY fixtures delivered crisp, high-intensity beams that cut through the space, creating dramatic aerial looks during worship sets and energizing the performance by Miles Minnick,” according to the announcement.
Flexible Wash and Eye Candy Effects
Rounding out the rig were 12 ADJ Focus Flex L19 moving head wash fixtures. Four were mounted on the upstage truss, four on the downstage truss and four placed on carts positioned along the back of the stage.
Featuring nineteen 40-watt RGBL color mixing LEDs arranged in concentric circles, the Focus Flex L19 offers both wash capabilities and eye-catching pixel effects. With a zoom range of 5 to 50 degrees and a high CRI enabled by the inclusion of lime LED elements, the fixture can generate tight beams or wide, vibrant color washes.
“I like the large look of the Focus Flex L19’s face and the output is really good, enough to use on an arena show,” comments Alex. “The built-in macros are nice too, allowing me to add in some visual looks even when – as was the case with this show – I don’t have enough channels available to pixel map them. I put four of them on the bottom rung of the stage carts because I’m a big fan of silhouetting for slow songs. I'll sometimes kill the front wash completely and just use the back light, and those four fixtures on the bottom, zoomed way out, looked great, especially in a warm white or amber.”
The combination of wash coverage, beam effects and silhouetting techniques helped create emotional contrast throughout the event, reinforcing the message from the stage and deepening audience engagement.
Arena Impact Without LED Walls
“By leveraging the creative flexibility and output power of ADJ’s Focus and Vizi Seriesluminaires, Alex and the Showco AV team successfully transformed the BoS Center into an immersive worship environment — all without the use of an LED backdrop,” the announcement continiues. “Strategic fixture placement, layered beam and GOBO effects and thoughtful color transitions allowed the lighting rig to fill the arena with depth, movement and atmosphere. The result was a visually compelling production that matched the scale and energy of the Momentum Conference’s return to an arena setting.
“For Illinois Student Ministries and the thousands of young attendees, the 2025 Momentum Conference proved that with the right creative vision — and the right lighting tools — impactful production value is achievable at any scale,” the announcement concludes.
For more information:
ADJ
Momentum Conferencewww.ilsmonline.com/events/momentum
Showco AVwww.showcoav.com
