Brisbane’s thriving Life Church community has a new auditorium and multi-purpose facility, effectively converted from a disused school property with the help of Forefront Productions’ installation of a comprehensive audio, lighting and video system.
In the suburbs of Brisbane, Life Church purchased an old school hall and set about turning it into a new worship facility that could also house their own existing school. With the help of Forefront Productions, they set about converting the original school hall into a multipurpose church auditorium. Forefront was contracted to help design and install comprehensive audio, lighting and video systems as well as offer advice on stage construction, venue layout and acoustic treatments.
Whilst church activities account for most of the venue usage, the school also utilises it for assemblies and performances. The audio system therefore, needed to be flexible and forgiving, all the while providing clear, consistent coverage to the space. As a growing and influential church in the city, Life Church also houses international speakers and artists who require an appropriate level of audio reproduction.
Several options were proposed, and, in the end, the NEXO GEO S12 line array found the right balance between performance and budget. As Matt Wever, senior engineer at Forefront Productions states, “We’re always impressed with the accuracy and full, rich near field sound of the NEXO GEO S12 system.” In addition, the main PA for the auditorium comprises of 3x GEO S1210 + 1x GEO S1230 per side.
Along with a high standard of sound reproduction, a strict criteria was employed regarding the choice of sub and front fill, for these had to be the right size to squeeze into a pre-existing stage structure whilst also remaining hidden from view. These questions were comprehensively answered by four of NEXO’s new super-compact ID24 elements as front fill with 4x NEXO LS18 subs deployed in a steered array configuration. The main system is also capable of delivering an impressive 111dBa to the seated area, with less than 1.5dB fluctuation across the room. Level is not the major feature: consistently, the comments from the church leaders have focused on the impressive clarity and the sense of energy in the system.
Lee Blight, Senior Pastor at Life Church, praised the skills of Forefront Productions in managing the project. “We would not do this any other way, having Forefront oversee all aspects of our AV project meant that we caught many of the potential integrations issues early.” To conclude, Life Church’s new venue has already facilitated a major conference, and shows by UK guest artists Martin Smith and Army of Bones.
