1 of 7
Going big with fiber was something the Willow Creek team could easily agree upon. The church added at least 850 fiber runs for routing video and digital audio networking throughout the early 2000-era facility.
2 of 7
One of the keys to the church’s long-running success has been its ability to foster and maintain the technical excellence necessary to support a constantly evolving artistic vision.
3 of 7
Senior Pastor Bill Hybels founded Willow Creek Community Church in 1975 in South Barrington, Ill., a western suburb of Chicago. In 2004 the church opened a new auditorium with a seating capacity in excess of 7,000, making it one of the largest theaters in the United States. The facility recently underwent a major technical renovation.
4 of 7
The church worked closely with TC Furlong Inc. of Lake Forest, Ill., to find an audio console that would be both reliable and offer flexibility for the future. In late 2016, the church installed two new Yamaha Rivage PM10 Digital Consoles.
5 of 7
The new installation boosts the ministry’s channel capacity from 96 to 144 and provides significant advances for recording and routing audio to different parts of the facility.
6 of 7
The recent technical upgrade included the addition of eight Hitachi SK-HD1200 portable HD studio and field production cameras along with two Hitachi DK-H100 compact box cameras.
7 of 7
The church installed the new Yamaha Rivage PM10 Digital Consoles at both FOH and monitor positions (shown here, left).
Willow Creek Community Church is well known for unique, powerful and creative worship services at its 7,200-seat sanctuary in South Barrington, Ill. From the church's first services, worship has infused art in many forms to inspire faith, including spoken word, film, music and dance. “History would support the arts in church as a means to help people connect with God,” notes Willow Creek's video director, Darren Niesley. “There is something about the use of art, performance and creative visual elements that helps people experience God.”
One of the keys to the church's long-running success has been their ability to foster and maintain the technical excellence necessary to support a constantly evolving artistic vision. Recently, as systems in the main auditorium were reaching end-of-life or being outgrown, technology leaders at Willow Creek had to access new video and audio solutions to find the best equipment offerings that would support the church's artistic vision into the future.
Willow Creek's popular main campus was built in 2004 and serves as both a model and a technology hub for seven other successful regional campuses in the greater Chicago area. At the main campus, in addition to the main auditorium, there are three other venues: an activity center for the Junior High School ministry; the Lakeside auditorium for High School ministry and Wednesday evening worship; and a 500-seat chapel for weddings, funerals and a weekly Spanish language service. In addition, the main campus has 16 classrooms that seat between 50 and 200 students, many of which are equipped with sound, lights and projection that support each ministry's creative needs.
Unique team structure
When the church installed technology solutions across multiple venues at its main campus in 2004, it became clear that a typical technology team structure would not efficiently meet all the technical challenges of such a busy and growing enterprise. “By viewing equipment as a shared resource, as opposed to being ‘siloed' by department,” says Willow Creek's chief engineer, Dave Cooke, “we learned that we could centralize production support and act as a shared resource for the ministries.”
While Cooke recalls that getting groups to give up their equipment and technology budgets was initially a challenge, the benefits of pooling the resources have proven to be well worth the effort. His dedicated systems team can design and configure systems that work more consistently and reliably in more situations. They are also in a position to make better informed purchases and function as an in-house integrator. “A dedicated systems team creates many advantages,” says Cooke, “including helping to guarantee that equipment is properly upgraded and maintained. We're very proactive. Plus, operators don't have to wonder who will make sure equipment works when they need it.”
It's important to note that Cooke's systems team is completely separate from equipment operators and production personnel. They are tasked solely with designing, integrating and maintaining the equipment and infrastructure. “Teams have control to work with equipment as they need it to support all the creative activities,” says Cooke, adding that his team members, in addition to doing repairs and special configurations, often act as consultants, plying their experience to help the various ministries achieve their creative goals. Centralizing technology also presents economic advantages, like being able to accurately track assets and contribute in capital assessment and planning projects.
While the systems team doesn't operate equipment, they are recognized as an integral part of every service, as they provide Engineer On Call (EOC) positions whose members typically monitor the service and respond when a call comes into the team's hotline. With a centralized team managing all equipment needs of a busy campus, demand for them can be high. Cooke's team now uses Kayako help desk software to manage and track the many requests that come to them.
In addition to the systems team, Willow Creek's team of operators, directors and volunteers that program and operate lighting, audio and video for services are called the weekend team and a general production team, referred to as Rest of the Church (ROTC), supports activities in the children's and high school ministries, as well as the chapel and elsewhere on campus.
The move to HD video
The visual arts, film and video have played an important role in the church's development. “The church's first home was a movie theater,” recalls Video Director Darren Niesley, “that's where it started. It is in the DNA of Willow Creek to use the arts.” To better support the church's creative team of filmmakers and producers, Niesley worked closely with the systems team to upgrade the facility's video equipment to HD standards and increase capacity.
Willow Creek's video equipment had provided good service since its original installation. However, with central system components at or approaching end-of-life and a constant demand for more capacity, new video technology would need to be installed that would both enhance ideas brought forth by creatives and provide the flexibility to support anything the future might bring. “Of course, we wanted to improve quality and our video capabilities with the HD upgrade,” recalls Niesley, “but we also looked hard at creating more flexibility. Flexibility is what helps you solve the problems that come along with creativity.” With those objectives in mind, the team designed a new video system that would provide more inputs and outputs, as well as more options to control and route signals.
Working closely with systems integrator Clark of Atlanta, the church installed eight Hitachi SK-HD1200 portable HD studio and field production cameras along with two Hitachi DK-H100 compact box cameras. The team was familiar with Hitachi cameras and was pleased with the high-quality results they could achieve with them. Two SK-HD1200s were stationed on tripods behind front-of-house with Fujinon 55x lenses, with an additional SK-HD1200 on a jib. The additional cameras are deployed by the production teams as different needs arise. One DK-H100 box camera is typically used with a Steadicam stabilization system and another deployed in a Ross Video CamBot 500 configuration controlled via TCP/IP.
In addition to the high-quality video provided by the Hitachi cameras, the units also address Niesley's expectation that the new technology should be flexible. “We can configure them in so many ways, from handheld to full studio kits or on tripod dollies in the front row,” he says. A stock of lenses ranging from standard 22x up to 40x telephoto, including Canon HD ENG lenses with image stabilization for handheld use, adds to the cameras' flexibility.
Niesley is also impressed with Hitachi controls. “Our operators experience with Hitachi has been very good,” he says. “Camera operation can be made simple with many user-friendly ways to set up camera controls.”
A key component for the HD upgrade was the move to a Ross Video Acuity production switcher system. A Ross 6 M/E switcher was installed along with work surfaces in each of Willow Creek's video control rooms. A 4 M/E control surface in control room A handles production work in the main auditorium, leaving a smaller, 2 M/E switcher in control room B available for IMAG, studio productions, auxiliary mixing or studio production work that might be required during service times. “This configuration gives us the most flexibility,” notes Niesley. “We can route any M/E to one control panel or split four and two or other arrangements. We can be responsive to many different situations without making sacrifices.”
Video output from the Hitachi cameras, passed through the Ross switcher, produces high-quality content for Willow Creek's seven regional campuses that are set up to show services on time-delay. While in the main auditorium, video output delivers live image magnification (IMAG) to the auditorium's two 24- by 14-foot Mitsubishi LED screens and a similarly sized, Barco-driven projection screen. Signal is also distributed to more than two dozen 55-inch monitors, digital signage located throughout the facility, and seat-back monitors for the physically challenged—over 100 monitors in all. Niesley's volunteer team creates broadcast-style experience for all attendees. “Our goal is to give viewers the whole picture,” says Niesley, “whether they're inside or out of the room.”
The reach of Willow Creek's broadcasts includes the regional campuses, each of which receives media files of the main campus's services for showing on a time-delayed basis, plus live and on-demand streams seen by followers around the globe. Willow Creek's annual Global Leadership Summit is also privately broadcast to hundreds of venues across North America and packaged for subsequent distribution.
Audio to meet demand
Matt Wentz is Willow Creek's audio systems engineer lead on Cooke's system team for the designs, installations and upgrades of audio gear. Until recently, his challenges maintaining an aging console were mounting steadily as productions were calling for more audio inputs and feeds than the system could provide. “Our console had great capacity at the time it was installed,” remarks Wentz. “But recently, the need for additional inputs was causing us to find soft patching solutions, frequent re-programming and even risk moves during productions.” Recent productions at the church have called for supporting two bands, a satellite stage and an increasing number of audio channels dedicated to video. Worse than limited capacity for FOH and monitor engineers, gear was also failing more frequently.
In order to better support the church's creative team that “keeps pushing the boundaries,” Wentz worked closely with audio vendor TC Furlong Inc. of Lake Forest, Ill., to find an audio console that would be both reliable and offer enough options to support Willow Creek's creative vision for the future. During the search, a unique opportunity was presented to the team. The church's 40th anniversary celebration at Chicago's United Center that would be attended by 25,000 worshippers presented a chance to audition the new Yamaha Rivage PM10 Digital Console. The event in the Chicago Bulls' arena would be a test for the technical teams and the new console since the elaborate production would feature multiple bands, over a dozen vocalists and performers, and various speakers.
The event and the trial of the PM10 console were huge successes. “Prior to the big event at the United Center, we had experience with Yamaha consoles with our PM1D,” says Wentz. “It was reliable and great sounding.” More broadly, Wentz respects Yamaha products for being well-tested and supported. He is also quick to add that with familiar Yamaha consoles in the church's other venues, it takes his engineers only a few minutes to get things up and working, rather than days of training and experimentation.
The installation of a new PM10 console, along with an RPio622 I/O rack with HY slots that support connectivity with both TwinLane and Dante protocols, in Willow Creek's main auditorium boosted the ministry's channel capacity from 96 to 144, but Wentz's concern wasn't solely channel count. The design of the new console provides two 15-inch screens for convenient control of two sections of the board that can be completely independent. In addition, the new console offers engineers increased flexibility with 72 mix busses and 36 matrix busses.
Of course, Wentz did not overlook sound quality and ease of use. “We find Yamaha to be the best sounding desks,” he says. “They are very ‘warm' and we especially love the flexibility offered with the ability to customize faders. Operators can really make the console their own.” In addition, Wentz points to the great plug-ins available for the new console and Yamaha's collaboration with engineering icon Rupert Neve. Its integration into the PM10 console marks the first time that Rupert Neve Designs' Silk circuit has been available in a live sound console.
Infrastructure for future needs
According to Cooke (who has served Willow Creek in his post of chief engineer for 20+ years), sound planning has always paid off. “When we started designing for the new building in 2004, it presented many new challenges,” he recalls. “For the first time, we would have a real theatrical space with fly space, hoists, etc. We wanted to be prepared for any eventuality and we learned a lot from that.” As a result, the building was wired with many cable drops to choir rooms, backstage areas and multiple camera locations. Even locations in the catwalk were wired to avoid the need for temporary cable runs. “Having more potential camera locations presents more options for unique shots and allows the directors to cover all the angles,” he reports. While Cooke admits that a lot has changed with worship, the teams' continued need for a forward-looking and flexible infrastructure has not.
To support the HD video and audio console upgrades, Cooke and his team worked closely with their integrator, Clark, to replace 15 years of existing cable throughout the building, including swapping out 56 triaxial cable runs with more versatile fiber cable. “We replaced all of our cable runs with fiber,” he notes, “and, where economy allowed, we added more. We might not use it all now, but it will help us respond to future requests.”
In addition to fiber's ability to exceed CAT5/6 distance limitations, it presents a better infrastructure for both video, audio and IT applications to share. Five hundred strands of fiber are dedicated for video and 350 strands of multi- and single-mode fiber that provide a medium for Yamaha's TwinLane and Audinate's Dante digital audio protocols. Dante is used across the campus, as well as to connect console to PA, for virtual sound check, and for recording 192 tracks into a ProTools mix for on-demand and live streaming. Dante also facilitates automating the broadcast mix during services and performances.
Going big with fiber was something Cooke, Wentz and Niesley could easily agree on. “Fiber can be utilized by audio, video or lighting,” observes Wentz. “Increasing capacity of a shared resource, like fiber, matches our vision. We weren't going to go ‘apples to apples' knowing that there are bigger and better things happening in the future that we will need to support.”
In terms of upgrade advice, the systems team at Willow Creek offers the following from its experience: “Keep all options in mind,” says Wentz. “You need and want high-quality gear, but that has to balance with usability—how it works for your application.” Cooke reminds technology planners that experience is important. “Knowing what has been requested in the past provides good clues to what will be needed in the future,” he asserts.
In supporting creative vision, Niesley reports that he has learned that there is no single right way to upgrade. He encourages engineers to communicate with the creative teams to keep creativity at the forefront. “Reserve a bit of your budget so you can add something new—that will have interest factor. It's important because it stimulates creativity,” he concludes.
