Morning Star Ministries' Summer Tour 07 Takes on Chauvet Gear

Leonard Jones, praise leader of Morning Star Ministries, was looking for a way to stay a little cooler and avoid the "brutal heat of PAR cans day after day" during a planned 35-day summer tour from Kansas to California. Attracted to the "cooler stages LEDs could provide," Jones asked Eye Dialogue's lighting designer Jack Kelly to design a mobile stage-lighting rig that used LEDs exclusively, while remaining budget conscious. They decided to go with Chauvet products--albeit with reservations. Kelly hesitated initially because he was not too familiar with the entire range of Chauvet products and feared the lights might not withstand the rigor of touring. But a sample of the COLORado 3 washlight with an IP65-rated metal case, 54 one-watt LEDs in three pods, won him over.

"It was everything I always wanted in a fixture," Kelly says. His rig design reflects his newfound belief. Kelly used CHAUVET LED fixtures exclusively, complementing four COLORAdo 3s with 20 smaller, more traditional looking COLORado 1s, each featuring 36 (1W) LEDs in one compact pod. This, Kelly says, gave him "all the tools needed for a waterproof theatrical mobile-stage lighting rig."

The units' RGB mixing capability allowed Kelly to utilize fewer fixtures, over a traditional PAR rig, simplifying setup and focusing. The COLORado fixtures come with waterproof jumpers and converters for DMX and power, a must for reliable outdoor performance. The ability to daisy-chain multiple units made it possible to power the entire stage with just two runs for power and DMX.

The result is, according to Kelly, a lighting scheme that provides "strong illumination, washing the entire stage area, while maintaining a simple and symmetrical layout that looks marvelous running color sweeps and chases."