Special Event Services and Outline Deliver the Word in Los AngelesTexan evangelist Joel Osteen recently brought his unique style of Christian preaching to Los Angeles with a capacity crowd at the newly-refurbished LA Forum. With a weekly TV audience topping seven million and an international monthly audience in excess of 20 million in over 100 countries, in addition to being a best-selling author, Osteen has been voted the most influential Christian in America. His "Night Of Hope" gatherings combine contemporary worship with live music, prayer time, and inspirational messages. A very different sonic challenge from most other live events, the principal technical requirement when presenting evangelism is vocal intelligibility -- seamless full-frequency audio coverage, without "hot" or "cold" spots, delivered to every single person in the room at conversational levels. At the LA Forum that meant catering for a congregation of 18,000 and Special Event Services of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, used part of their Outline inventory in a powerful but unobtrusive system design that achieved everything that the client and crowd expected. The main left/right system comprised 13 Outline GTO and a single GTO-DF (downfill) cabinet per side plus 16 Outline Mantas for side-hangs and a dozen ground-stacked LAB21-HS subwoofers. The only other elements were six GTO-LIPF 082 stage lip fill modules covering the rows immediately in front of the stage, with system power and control provided by Powersoft K-8 and K-10 amplifiers with Lake LM26 processors. SES president Jason Farah said, "As Pastor Osteen does these 'Night of Hope' events approximately once a month, the challenge is always the same -- that challenge is to design and deploy a PA system that is formidable enough to support their high-energy Lakewood Church band, yet is articulate enough to make Pastor Osteen's message intelligible throughout the entire venue." "As Pastor Osteen uses a lapel microphone only, getting enough gain-before-feedback is a concern. But the GTO system always excels at this challenge, not only getting enough gain on his microphone, but also making his words clear and indeed intimate-feeling. Even in the seats furthest from the stage, it sounds like he's speaking right in front of the listener. This is why GTO has been so successful for so many years for this client." Farah concludes, "These 'Night of Hope' events are true 'one-offs' in that we load-in in the morning, rehearse in the afternoon, then do the event and strike that evening, all on the same day. Outline's OpenArray 3D modeling software makes for accurate predictions and the speed of deployment of the GTO system itself makes such one-offs possible. The results are predictable, repeatable and successful, every time!" 
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