Having established themselves in Dayton, TN amidst a period of rapid population growth, The Family Church could easily expect upcoming expansion. They worked hard to stay ahead and plan for a remodel making the existing balcony a usable space while updating their church sound equipment. The dream came alive with unanimous support and a design team was quickly assembled. However, when pledges did not come through as expected, The Family Church realized the design they had drawn up would be more complicated to execute.
The Family Church had originally contacted and selected Loud Media Group (LMG) among others for their design expertise based on their team’s shared excitement and persistence despite challenges. Team members from LMG had already attended The Family Church’s services and shared great conversations with their worship teams to gain vision of the dream for themselves. So, when fundraising goals were not met, The Family Church had to disband their full design team and chose to ask LMG to be the sole integrator to carry the project forward. Together, the worship staff and the LMG team were optimistic and more than determined to still bring their dreams to life.
“Budget really drives everything. We had to retreat and figure out how to fit the design of our dreams into an existing room with the minimal infrastructure that we currently had,”
-Pastor Daryl explains.
The Family Church looked at the available funding and current assets and determined that they could use the previously existing room to reach the same goal. The staff had some concerns though: they needed to ensure that this room’s retrofitting would provide the same results despite the reduced infrastructure.
They had planned for the new building, believing that the infrastructure “is either going to limit you or keep you moving into the future,“ and therefore absolutely essential! Some of the challenges in The Family Churches current auditorium included optimizing sight lines to be able to increase seating capacity from the far sides and existing balcony. LMG studied and created models of the room to effectively design the stage and the Center Video screen to provide a great view to any of the newly renovated seating areas.
The current building also had very little previous Audio-visual-Lighting infrastructure so LMG worked with the county code enforcement to design a complete lighting system capable of covering the entire performing stage. Additionally, LMG worked hard to install new cable paths, tie lines, and floor boxes to route signals around the space of the building properly and discreetly.
Nevertheless, the main challenge of the space was a limit on the electrical supply to the facility. The A/V design accounted for 350 amps of power across all three trades of audio, video, and lighting while leaving room for further expansion. When the quote for increasing power capacity to the current room came in at almost $100,000, the realization was that power consumption for the room would definitely be the biggest obstacle to overcome in this renovation. LMG took great care to review every system, with energy efficiency in mind to stay within the 200 amp allowance the building currently had and avoid having to hire electrical contractors for a new service to be run to the building.
After finding further efficiencies in the most power-efficient speakers from Electro-Voice and Hitachi projectors, LMG continued to work with the electrical contractors to create max power draw and average power draw scenarios for the room. “…in aiming for the 200 amp threshold, we ended up around 140 amps total, allowing room for future expansion,“ Jordan Banther, Lead Engineer rom LMG recalls, “The initial cost of the fixtures increased, but it was far less than the $100,000 quote to add more electrical services to the building. The Family Church will reap huge savings on energy costs along with the lower maintenance costs of all inclusive systems.” Jordan recaps, “Basically, the technical budget was reduced by 35% when we switched to a minimal, single room renovation and we worked diligently to find the most efficient hardware in the systems The Family Church needed, and sought to create a long term plan to develop the flexibility they needed to be able to add pieces later.“
Loud Media Group was still able to Execute The Family Churches global dream and reduce the financial burden along the way. And the fears for the infrastructure?
“Everyone’s saying, I’ve never heard or seen the pastor so clearly before! And from the user position, we haven’t run into a single thing yet that kept us from doing what we tried to do!”- Amy Lathim, Worship Staff
The Staff at The Family Church, now sees that a tight budget for a new or renovated space, “does not affect the dream, just the reality of how you can accomplish it.”
Construction Type: Remodel
Seat Count: 300-550
Scope of Work: Audio, Video, Performance lighting, Theatrical Lighting, Distributed Audio and Back fills
Budget: $15,500