Good Shepherd Church herded in the right direction with grandMA3

The Good Shepherd Church in Seongnam, Korea, is a busy, active and dynamic environment running a raft of regular daily, weekly and monthly performance-based worship services and praise gatherings plus other related shows and events. It’s right at the heart of its local community and is a constant fundraiser for assorted humanitarian causes both local and international.

In 2022, the church made its first MA Lighting console purchase, when a new grandMA3 onPC command wing joined the production technology in the 500-capacity multipurpose Glory Hall. This was supplied by MA Lighting’s Korean distributor, Hansam System, together with a package of new luminaires. The new grandMA3 onPC command wing is now installed in the Glory Hall, located on the sixth floor of the expansive Seongnam campus. This particular venue has a focus on youth programs.

Good Shepherd has always believed in investing in quality production technology, and technical manager Jin-woo Yoo explained that when the church sought a full lighting solution for the Glory Hall, a powerful, stable, future proof and easy to use control platform was essential. It wanted a console that offered the flexibility of being able to create, modify and update lighting cues extremely fast to keep up with the events staged in the Glory Hall.

The grandMA3 onPC command wing was proposed by the Hansam Systems team led by sales manager Chang-gon Kim, together with eight Martin ERA 600 moving lights, 24 ELP WW ellipsoidal and nine Rush PAR2s, also from Martin, as well as 14 Elation fresnel spots and 37 DMX controlled house lights, all running through the new console.

A typical Glory Hall praise gathering might feature a service in the morning finishing around 11.30, with a performance starting at 2pm followed by another one at 6pm, so the lighting team must work super quick and be imaginative and original in how they are using the lights.

“With such a short prep time, we needed a platform and a philosophy that allowed the lighting team to work fast and create great results under pressure,” Woo-Yoo commented. He and the lighting team considered several different options, before deciding on grandMA3 but it was the whole grandMA3 system, its scope and adaptability that was said to really impress them the most.

Kim concluded: “For venues of this size, experiencing the incredible potential and flexibility of MA via the grandMA3 onPC command wing is every bit as wonderful as it sounds.”