Now is the time when most churches enter a lull in special events. While it's a great time to recoup from the extra workload that the holiday season from Thanksgiving through Easter brings, it's also the perfect time to review some of the challenges you faced during this season and address them before November rushes upon us once more.
To start, do some brainstorming with your volunteers to discuss how things went from a technical production standpoint over the last holiday season. What were the challenges the team faced? What aspects of your facility made things time-consuming, difficult, or just plain unsafe? Do your holiday events burn out your volunteers from the workload? And what could be done to address these issues?
Also brainstorm with the ministries in your church that your team supports. If you support children's ministry events, what would the children's pastor like to do in the next year or two that would affect your team? Be pro-active in seeking out their input. It will make your life simpler, and build up the relationship between you and them by showing you care about their ministry.
Think about things like hang positions, fixture maintenance, special effects, DMX data drops, gels. For example, are your DMX data drops placed in inconvenient locations resulting in numerous long cable runs, requiring time to run the cables and tape them down for safety? Perhaps some new DMX jacks can be installed to decrease the cable runs.
Did you have to say “No” to certain creative ideas because of lack of resources? If these are ideas that will likely come up again, what can you do to be prepared? Can you sell some less useful lighting equipment in order to purchase fixtures that are more flexible? Can you explore rental options now and establish an account ahead of time with a rental facility so that obtaining last-minute gear goes smoothly? Some rental companies require things like proof of insurance, so getting the paperwork out of the way upfront can make life simpler later.
Did you have to say “No” to certain creative ideas because of lack of resources?
Are there big-ticket items that would help significantly but will require time to both plan for funds as well as to convince the church's leadership of the idea? If your over-the-stage lighting fixtures are difficult or impossible to get at without clearing the stage and bringing in a lift, perhaps exploring a retrofit of the stage with a tension grid for easy access to fixtures is worthwhile.
An important thing to keep in mind, however, is to make sure that what you want to propose will actually impact the “bottom line” of executing the church's ministry. If you can't come up with a valid, compelling reason how an enhancement will impact the church's mission in your community, then drop it. Proposing changes that your pastor can't see the benefit of will only harm your credibility.
Once you've brainstormed ideas, research how to best implement them. Come up with a realistic budget and schedule. Think through how implementing those changes will impact facility use and have a plan for dealing with it.
Then, seek buy-in from the leadership of the church. Present how each change or improvement will help the church achieve their ministry goals. Focus on end results, not the details of the changes. They'll be interested in how adding a tension grid would enable you to accommodate last minute changes that you had to say “no” to in the past, like fixing blown lamps that had to wait for a time when clearing the stage for a lift was more feasible.
For expensive changes like the tension grid example, look for opportunities to take the pastor to a facility that has one so they can see first-hand the advantages. Depending on your pastor's personality, do a practical demonstration. Have them ride your one-man lift up to the ceiling on your stage (a frequently disconcerting experience for many!), and then take them to a facility with a tension grid and show how quickly you can access fixtures above the stage to make changes to better support your services.
This is also a great time to perform maintenance. Replace your gels; inspect the lamp holders in your fixtures for signs of arcing or corrosion and replace the sockets if needed; clean the air filters on dimmer racks and moving lights.
And while we've mainly discussed gear, don't leave out process and communication improvements. Where were things not documented sufficiently, causing either unnecessary work or last-minute stressful scrambles? How can issues like this be avoided in the future? Meet with those involved and review in a positive, constructive manor how either lack of communication caused issues, or how changes in the method of communicating needs could make things easier for all concerned. Work out procedures that will address the issues and will work for all concerned. Perhaps exploring a system like Planning Center Online would facilitate scheduling and communications for all involved.
Spending time now thinking through and implementing what will be needed for future holiday events will help reduce your stress when Christmas and Easter roll around again.
