Pantano Christian "Makes Good Better" With Chauvet Professional

	Pantano Christiam Church with new lighting recommended by CCI Solutions using Chauvet Professional.

Pantano Christian Church already had a good lighting system, when its leaders concluded that "good" lighting wasn't quite good enough when it came to creating the kind of engaging worship experience they wanted to offer their congregation. So they contacted house of worship design/build firm CCI Solutions of Olympia, Washington to implement a comprehensive lighting and audio upgrade at their church.

Consultants Duke DeJong and Todd Gathany of CCI Solutions spent two days with the senior leadership and programming teams at Pantano, working with the church to define their vision and walk through their potential new lighting and audio systems, describing how each could help them achieve their goal. For the lighting side of the upgrade, CCI Solutions added a collection of LED stage lighting from Chauvet Professional to the church's system.

"Pantano was already doing some great things when it came to their lighting," said DeJong. "However, there was a desire to add a lot more color to their lighting rig, and their dimming system definitely needed greater reliability. As we walked through each part of the new systems with the team from Pantano, it became clear that big out-of-the-box ideas were not only acceptable; they were encouraged."

Among those "outside the box" ideas was the decision to replace the church's old dimmable incandescent fixtures with two LED products from Chauvet Professional: the Ovation E-190WW ellipsoidal, and Ovation F-165WW Fresnel; a move that DeJong and Gathany said took some members of the church by surprise.

"While Pantano's leaders assumed that new LED lights would be used to give the church the big color they wanted, they didn't think they would be replacing their incandescent dimming fixtures too," said DeJong. "They thought adding new dimmers would be sufficient, but we believed and recommended to the church that its best option was to replace its incandescent stage lighting system with a collection of Chauvet Professional LED products: the Ovation E-190WW ellipsoidal and Ovation F-165WW Fresnel."

"We made this recommendation because we believe there are too many advantages to going to LED fixtures to pass up," added Gathany. "This being Tucson, the fact that the fixtures give off far less heat and consume less power than incandescent fixtures is very significant. We were also convinced that the flat even field, brightness, and theatrical friendly color temperatures of the Ovation fixtures would best serve the church."

Having literally come to their meeting with Pantano Christian directly from LDI, where they saw the Ovation series fixtures in action at the show, DeJong and Gathany felt confident recommending them for the church. "We were so impressed with how effective the fixtures were," said Gathany. "We knew they would be a great fit for what Pantano was trying to accomplish."

CCI Solutions' design has the Ovation E-190WW ellipsoidal fixtures positioned on the church's house lighting pipes to serve as key lights. The Ovation F-165WW Fresnel fixtures are used as fill lights. Rounding out the stage rig are COLORdash Batten-Quad 12 RGBA linear wash fixtures."

"The COLORdash Batten-Quad 12 fixtures are positioned at different points around the stage for band and stage set washes," said DeJong. "For example, they may use the fixtures for a subtle wash during services then create something with more dynamic movement for special events. The dimming capabilities, beam angle, and rich colors of this fixture make it very versatile. It not only opens up creative possibilities for the church, it also saves them time and money by being so versatile."

Gathany notes that Pantano Christian Church is also very pleased with a more subtle feature of the new lighting system. "The fantastic color temperatures of the Ovation products make the preacher and anyone else on stage look great, both in person and on camera," he said. "Their old system was functional, but with the Ovation fixtures everyone looks more natural and evenly lit, which is critical since they do use image magnification."

"We've had good success over the years using Chauvet fixtures to provide bright, dynamic color for the churches we serve," added DeJong. "And now, with the Ovation series fixtures, we have also have a great solution for white front lighting. With the quality of light those fixtures put out, and the great price, we look at using Chauvet lighting in our projects more than ever."

For more information on CCI Solutions visit www.ccisolutions.com.

See Chauvet Professional at PLASA Focus: Orlando, February 17 - 18, 2015.