A.C. Americas Lights Willowdale Seventh-day Adventist Church in Ontario

	"Ultimately, the improvements have resulted in a more comfortable environment overall and an improved look for livestreaming," says Snow. Photo: sparkAV ltd.

Although Willowdale Seventh Day Adventist Church has updated its lighting infrastructure over the years, it was only recently that the North York, Ontario-based church decided to undertake a comprehensive overhaul.

Headed by sparkAV, the project required replacing Willowdale's house lights with Chroma-Q Inspire XT and 2Inspire fixtures, upgrading stage lighting with PROLIGHTS EclProfile CT+HPs LED ellipsoidals, and adding a Luminex LumiSplit 2.10 rack-mounted DMX splitter.

"What we heard from David Civera (Willowdale's communications leader) was that they'd done a few upgrades over the years. But it was, essentially, a piecemeal approach," says Marc Snow, sparkAV's innovation and design specialist.

Facilitating the creation of a new system to take Willowdale into the future was a full-on team effort, he continues, crediting sparkAV's entire project team -- led by Ken Kruse (manager of projects) and James Nickerson (manager of field operations) -- for their work in meeting the church's needs to the letter.

Snow also worked closely with consultant Brad Dickson and A.C. Americas throughout the design process. "I relied heavily on Brad to provide us with the proper lighting plot and guidance on the correct instruments to light the stage appropriately," Snow says, adding: "Brad was a lighting director for CBC for decades and is now with Calibrated Technologies, so he was a huge help."

"Our design team also appreciated A.C. Americas meeting us at the church with the client and providing on-site demos," he adds. "A.C. Americas also invited sparkAV and Dickson to visit their facility for full camera testing and fixture comparisons using calibrated HS Scope software."

To meet the church's requirements, Snow continues: "We needed to replace the house lights and provide full lighting to paint their stage, baptistry, upstage wall and ceiling, and audience seating areas. And, since the services are livestreamed, provide the appropriate lighting for broadcast."

"All of the products performed great, as we expected," Snow notes. "To ensure we were able to achieve on-camera color accuracy, we evaluated the EclProfile CT+HP fixtures on camera using HS Scope to measure them. They gave us a good range of color temperatures and the control to calibrate them." That proved especially important, he notes: "Because we were also incorporating LED panels in the church and had to match the new lighting to the video panels' look on camera."

One of the primary issues to address was ensuring that the new house lighting, unlike their previous fixtures, provided (at least) the minimum standard of illumination for reading. "Of course, with the full color LED Inspire XT and 2Inspire fixtures, we easily surpassed that standard."

"The Inspire house lights also gave us the benefit of single shadows, allowing the congregation to easily read their prayer and hymn books without the distracting multiple shadows often associated with older lighting systems."

Various Inspire fixtures were deployed: 20 Inspire XTs, 8 2Inspire POE fixtures, and 9 2Inspire 200 POEs. "The main difference between the Inspire fixtures is the way they're controlled. We used three 2Inspire 200 PoE Ethernet-powered fixtures at the back of the sanctuary as wash/accent lighting under the balcony, and Inspire XTs (the DMX controllable version), over the stage as fill lighting to light the forestage."

The remaining Inspire fixtures were mounted throughout the sanctuary to provide additional illumination as required.

Beyond delivering ideal light levels for the congregation, another key benefit of the Inspire fixtures was their ability to match color temperatures to the EclProfile CT+ HPs and other lighting elements throughout the church.

The architect and designer's original vision for the space called for LED lighting strips to be mounted on the church's interior rafters and to outline a large crucifix and elevated panels at the rear of the stage.

Ultimately, the "off-the-shelf" LED strips the church hoped would provide sufficient light were abandoned. But, Snow says, "With the help of the team at Moss LED, our design team replaced those with camera-friendly, flicker-free, color-accurate, higher-output versions to preserve the architect's original concept. But they still weren't going to have the 30' candles necessary to provide the minimum light level for reading without eye strain."

"They didn't originally want pendant house lights," Snow continues. "They wanted to light the entire house with white LED strip bars, but in a house of worship, it's not just about (lighting) the stage. It's about the congregation, the whole room. The system also needed to encourage congregational engagement, which Snow says the combination of Inspire fixtures and Prolights EclProfile CT+HP LED ellipsoidals achieved very effectively.

"We were also able to blend the audience seating colour calibration with the stage (lighting) because the Inspire fixtures are full RGBWW controllable lights. That's why we recommended the Chroma-Q fixtures instead of standard, pendant LEDs." The house lighting also provides flexibility for special events, such as weddings that require a specific color palette: "Painting the room to match bridesmaids' dresses, for example."

sparkAV repurposed some of Willowdale's previous fixtures as wash lights and architectural elements, but stage lighting is handled primarily by ten PROLIGHTS EclProfile CT+ HPs, mounted across three pipes above the congregation, and positioned well outside of audience sightlines. "That was my goal, to keep them out of sight as much as possible," Snow adds. "We're very happy with the CT+ HPs. The 450W engine really gave us a lot of bang for the buck."

As for the Luminex LumiSplit, Snow explains: "The 2.10 is a DMX opto-splitter. Brad and I thought it was a great idea to have a 2-Universe opto-splitter, because we were able to set each individual port to (a separate) Universe."

"All the house lights," he continues, "are in a different Universe, which makes the system easier to configure because they're not using a hardware lighting desk. They're using a virtual desk. They have a lot of technical acumen. The clients are clever engineers in their own right, and actually programmed their own code to control the system, including all the stage lighting, LED accent lighting, and house lighting."

"Aesthetically, it's a really lovely space, and it's huge," Snow says, describing a sanctuary that now functions far more effectively for worship and production alike. Ultimately, the improvements have resulted in a more comfortable environment overall and an improved look for livestreaming. Allowing Willowdale to continue expanding its community and congregation through an engaging worship experience that translates seamlessly to remote viewers.

As Civera puts it: "Working with A.C. Americas, Brad Dickson, and sparkAV transformed our project and far exceeded our expectations. We now have church members requesting new lighting profiles and effects to match events and increase production value. Brad Dickson helped us navigate the intricacies of lighting an old church like ours in a tasteful and efficient way. And A.C. Americas then came to demo lighting fixtures and provided great products that fit our budget. sparkAV and A.C. Americas handled all the project's complexities. We just had to turn the lights on and witness the awe on our church members' faces as they literally saw their church in a new light."

The congregation's response was something sparkAV's entire team experienced firsthand. Snow concludes: "David got up and gave a sermon dedicated to our company and everyone involved. I was watching it on YouTube -- at 37,000 feet at the time," he adds with a laugh. "I was flying down south -- but a bunch of us watched the stream, including one of our owners and the company president. We all shed a joyful tear that morning. It was just so nice to see. They just loved the product so much, and they were so happy with everything."