!Audacious Church seen in a new light thanks to AC-ET
!Audacious Church seen in a new light thanks to AC-ET
!Audacious Church, based in Salford, Manchester in the UK, has recently benefitted from the installation of 34 Chroma-Q Inspire RGBW LED house lights, supplied by A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET). The new fixtures were delivered and installed by local lighting consultants, Urban Lites, after the church’s management decided to upgrade its flagship venue’s auditorium with a better quality, more consistent and reliable solution.
Founded in 2007, !Audacious Church has grown to the stage where its 1,400-capacity venue regularly attracts a full house for each of its three scheduled Sunday services. With an ageing, failing house lighting system of early-generation LED fixtures limiting the venue’s potential, the management put the upgrade requirements out to tender.
Mark Steele, operations manager at !Audacious Church, said: “We wanted a better light and better coverage to give us more usability for the venue. There just weren’t enough fixtures before, and some of those were becoming unreliable.”
The tender was won by Urban Lites, which had previously provided the church’s theatrical stage lighting rig and knew the auditorium well. Following discussion with its regular equipment supplier AC-ET, Urban Lites suggested a choice of solutions to the client. A demonstration was arranged by AC-ET’s Ben Steppenbeck, and the Chroma-Q Inspire fixtures were chosen.
“It was all very smooth, very helpful,” said Steele, “they were able to give us 3D previsualisation models, so we could see exactly what coverage we could expect. On the 3D model, most beams across the roof had seven fixtures, but on one of them they had only put four. When we questioned this, they said the model showed that four would work – and they were right. If they’d added another three fixtures, we’d never have questioned it.”
Urban Lites successfully installed the 34 wide beam angle Inspire luminaires during a five-day window between services. “They were very happy with the result,” said Walker. “The Inspire is a great product for this type of space. Its theatrical grade dimming and silent, convection-cooled design makes it especially attractive for auditorium environments.”
“The Inspire fixtures just looked really clean and classic,” said Steele. “And our auditorium is mostly black, so the black fixtures are well hidden. We’ve now got much better light, with less visual intrusion.”