Fast deployment leads Harvest America to select Martin
Published: WORSHIP
WORLD: Harvest America brings together millions of people across the US each year as the Harvest Christian Fellowship in Southern California spreads its message to a number of outlying venues. This year’s gathering was held at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas, with Martin lighting fixtures selected for their ability to quickly synchronise across hundreds of units.
With attendance in excess of 21,000, this year’s gathering featured a day of live music performances, family activities and a sermon from the church’s Pastor, Greg Laurie. The whole event was then broadcast and live-streamed to approximately 68 million people at churches, theatres and living rooms across the country.
Chris Eguizabal, lighting designer for Harvest Ministries, was responsible for selecting Martin MAC Aura lighting fixtures to provide a visual experience suitable for both the live audience and remote viewers.
‘With the MAC Aura’s exceptional colours, we were able to achieve the kind of lighting that not only washed the audience in an array of beautiful colours but also looked great on camera,’ Mr Eguizabal explained.
That, however, was not the overriding factor for choosing Martin. With extremely tight load-in times to work to, it was reportedly the scalable nature of the system that appealed most.
‘Thanks to the modular Martin lighting rig we prepared, we stayed true to the show’s aesthetics even though we only had 12 hours to load the entire event,’ Mr Eguizabal added. ‘We ended up cutting a few sticks of truss on stage from the air to accommodate the very limited load time but due to the strength and versatility of the Martin products, the show’s visuals didn’t suffer.’
Mr Eguizabal was also very familiar with Martin products having been introduced to them several years ago by Martin product manager Matthias Hinrichs and senior sales manager Greg Jones.
‘Not only are Martin products exceptional but the customer support is top-notch and above any other manufacturer I have ever dealt with,’ he explained. ‘I was on the phone with Matthias and [west coast regional sales manager] Scott Anderson before the event, working out the details in my M6 console and fixtures. They were by my side until the very end. That’s above and beyond the fact that the products I used performed flawlessly.’
The Martin M6 lighting console was used to programme the show in advance of load-in – another familiar piece of equipment for Mr Eguizabal as units are also in use at the Harvest Riverside and Harvest Orange County campuses.
‘The M6’s modules can easily be swapped for left handed programmers or whatever configuration you wish,’ said Mr Eguizabal. ‘Almost every button on the desk can be customised as you wish – I can program faster on this desk than any other desk for that reason. I can define the encoder knobs to any parameter control, giving me instant control insanely fast. The M-series software is very user-friendly and Martin is constantly refining and improving based on user feedback.’
A total of 32 MAC Viper Profiles, 20 MAC Auras and 10 MAC 200 XB wash fixtures formed the full lighting complement. Two Martin P3s provided video processing in sync with the lighting.