Wayside church calls upon The PA People
Published: WORSHIP
AUSTRALIA: The PA People was recently contacted to provide a state of the art lighting, sound and projection solution for the multipurpose Wayside Chapel in King’s Cross, Australia.
Reverend Graham Long, pastor and CEO of Wayside – who was recently nominated in the Australian of the Year Awards as a national finalist in the category of Australia's Local Hero 2014 – is particularly passionate about the use of the arts to create a sense of connection and belonging. Theatre techniques and workshops form a central part of the chapel’s activities, so having a fully functioning space was of key importance to him.
The HOW’s main focus is to enhance the local community, and as such offers a number of programmes covering physical and mental health, indigenous issues and youths at risk. In the past year alone it has provided – amongst other services – 8,089 community meals, 7,572 changes of clothing, 8,475 one-on-one support sessions, 2,453 referrals to services and agencies and 653 activities for young people and visitors with long term mental health issues.
A solution was created in which lighting, sound and video equipment was installed that could service both front and side areas – all controllable by either the press of a screen, or by theatre technicians from fully featured consoles.
‘We designed the system to have a “simple” and “presentation” mode,’ explained Brett Steele, manager, installed systems at The PA People. ‘In simple mode, a volunteer can press a button on a touch screen, the system turns on, and they can use a radio microphone or play a DVD. Presentation mode puts the system into a professional state controlled from the lighting and audio desks.’
Two Sony VPL-FH36 projectors focus to two screens, connected through a Kramer VP731 vision switcher, from a variety of inputs including a DVD player. JBL CBT70 column speakers powered by Crown XLS amps provide audio, run from either a Yamaha IMX644 matrix mixer or a Soundcraft Expression1 digital mixing desk connected to a Soundcraft MSB stagebox. A simple LED lighting rig can be run from a Jands Stage CL Lighting console or the touch-screen.
The core of the user interface is an AMX NI700 integrated controller. This enables control of all the elements of the system from a simple 4-inch touchscreen. The AMX controller and touchscreen can turn on lights to a set state, activate and mix microphones, put the hall into ‘movie mode’, or any other state that Wayside might need regularly. Anyone can operate the system from the screen, which is completely intuitive.
‘When we rebuilt, the best we could do for a theatre space was a box,’ said Reverend Long. ‘We’ve now transformed that box into a place in which you can really do theatre. The PA People really understood what we required, designed it and put it in place efficiently. We couldn’t be much happier.’