They started by making Christmas trees from foam core painted dark green and blue. Then they screwed wooden frames to the foam at varying heights to create a natural forest look. They did the same thing for the snowflakes in the front. They created the small snowflakes throughout the stage using wooden poles with worklights clamped to them (attached to a dimming system). They clipped foam snowflakes in front of the light.

Alec Glynn and Elliot Lund lit the whole set from front and back with Chauvet Color Dash Quads.

They started by using LED fairy lights to form the shape of Christmas trees on the sides. Because the trees were see-through…sight lines weren’t affected by them. They made the starts out of cardboard painted silver with added glitter.

They made the balls with plastic flute board. They cut it into strips and use rivets with washers to assemble. Inspired by Spheres and Trees.

Then they rented star cloth a star cloth.

Tech details:

Lights:
10x Chauvet Colorado 1
7x Chauvet Colorado1 VW
16x Chauvet Colorado 2
2x Pin spots (Mirror ball)
2x RGB pin spots for stars
4x Panels of star cloth
Control – Road Hog

Screens:
2x 12×9 Front Pro
2x Mitz 6000 ansi projectors
Extron control

Audio:
Yamaha PM5D
Inhouse JBL 3 way system
BSS 366 processing
Crest amplification
EAW microwedge foldback system

They started by hanging 18 hanging lightbulbs from string behind the screens. They ran power to them from a dimmer pack so they could dim them at the lighting board. Those cost about $300 from partylights.com.

Caleb wanted to frame the stage with some simple lights and found some pre-lit LED trees at Walmart ($30 each). The light bulbs around the trees were also from partylights.com and they had those from a previous set design.

The trees were the easiest part. A landscaper happened to have exactly what they needed and dropped them off at the church. They dried them in the basement for 3 weeks and then spray painted them a flat white. They had some 1″x4″ already and some stands that just screwed the 1″x4″ to to make a sort of support fence for the trees. Then Caleb cut them to around 7′ tall and spaced them about 1′ apart on the fence, fastening them with suspension strap (hardware store for $10).

They lit them with 4 Elation TriPar LED lights on the ground shooting across the backdrop.

Their Big Idea Team came up with a design combining artificial trees, birch frees (picked up from along the highway), cotton batten, and lots of clear mini-lights.

For the back drop they used black broadcloth to frame the sides and top and muslin that covers the back wall. The swag curtains were just a thinner grade of muslin.

The lighting consisted of Par64 par cans, Microh LED pro64′s and 2 Microh LED Bar II fixtures.

Total cost: approximately $400.

The stage set incorporated 2 upright trusses built from 1X1 board and spray painted a flat black. They were wrapped in Muslin fabric with Coroplast (white) attached to the back to reflect the light as much as possible. Each truss was uplit with a Venue 64 LED Par Can.

The set also included 4 gift boxes built with 1X1 board and spray painted a flat black. They were wrapped in a sheer, thin material to provide as much translucent light as possible with Coroplast (white) attached to the back to reflect the light. They also used 25mm white ribbon on the boxes and for the bows. Each box was lit with an ADJ LED Mega Par Profile.

The church tapestry used 6 Chauvet LED Colorstrips and Christmas light strands hung (evenly spaced) in front of them within the tapestry coves. They also had 13 Christmas trees on the stage all connected to a dimmer pack so they could program them with the rest of their light scenes.

The final touches included 3 additional Venue 64 LED Par Cans for uplighting in front of the choir risers, 2 ADJ Spot 250 moving heads for gobo and lighting effects on top of the trusses and 2 High End Studio Spot 575 moving heads sitting on boxes wrapped in a black fabric for additional gobo and intelligent lighting effects.

Total cost for this set was approximately $1700 for all material and additional lighting they had to purchase.

Their design was inspired by the Spheres and Trees design. They modified the design based on the bokeh effect of Christmas lights in a lens. They made the “lights” with metallic lame fabric wrapped around on side of a hula hoop via fabric tape. The fabric became translucent when lit, giving it a light bulb effect.

They spray painted trees white and blinged them out with oversized snowflakes from a dollar store. They printed their series logo on strips of paper joined to wooden frames making the center graphic that was about 10′x5′.

Total cost: $300.

First they cut down trees from the back lot of their property and had a friend at a collision repair center spray them with white paint. Then they attached 1 or 2 of them at a time to a 2′ x 2′ x 1/2″ plywood square. They covered the bases with some white cotton fill from Hobby Lobby ($3 per bundle).

They typically have white or grey walls, but they covered them with black curtains hung on extension poles (ones they already had).

The ice sickle lights were LED and were bought at Menards. They hung them with clear plastic hooks with a quick release, so they wouldn’t damage their walls. The plugged the lights into a dimmer pack so they could dim them.

They bought the snow flakes from Hobby Lobby and hung them with fishing line and white electrical tape. The windows were in the storage of a member’s house. After a thorough cleaning, Josh sprayed them with a frosting agent ($3) which after it drys, looks as though it has ice crystals on it. Then he added the spray snow into the bottom of each pane.

The candles were battery operated ($2 at Wal-Mart) and attached to the back of the window frames with velcro. For the colored lights they used 5 American DJ Mega Bar 50′s (drums, wall and percusion) and 4 Chauvet LED 200b’s (on trees).

They built a 12-foot tall glass tree for their “Finding Christmas” series. They hung 483 glass bottles with 20 lb. test fishing line from an overhead batton on their stage.

They constructed a 6′ wide, 12′ tall cone-shaped skeleton from 1″ aluminum tubing, welded aluminum angle and polycarbonate sheeting of varying thicknesses (thickest at the widest part of the cone). Using a clear material made it possible to light the bottles on all sides using LED strips.

They attached the polycarbonate to the aluminum frame using self-drilling screws, which worked well to attach it not only to the tubing, but also to pin the layers of polycarbonate together where the layers overlapped. With a cone this size, it would have easily taken 1,000+ bottles to cover the cone 360°. Where the tree was positioned on stage, it wasn’t necessary to cover the back. So they flanked the tree with translucent tree-shaped coroplast to keep the bottles front and center.

Side note: glass bottles vibrate and rearrange themselves when the band plays.

They added a little dry ice, some oversized ornaments and fantastic lighting to make it come alive.

They Christmas theme was “Gift”. They had a surplus of natural and white Coroplast from previous sets, so they exclusively used Coroplast to create this set.

They created a sort of “weave” under their screen and up-lit them with 3 ADJ Par Profile lights.

Then they used 1′x4′ panels on either side of their screen and stenciled the series logo in each of the four columns. They front-lit those panels with ADJ Mega Bars.

Finally they created gift boxes out of natural Coroplast and lit them from the interior with old Chauvet LED Par’s. They made made the boxes with very light 2′x2′ frames and stapled the Coroplast to the frame. They put large bows on each box to complete the “Gift” theme.

Since they recycled the Coroplast, they only spent money on some lumber. They also upgraded to the ADJ Mega Bars so that they would have some new fixtures.

They started the design with a 22 oz black velour curtain with built in RGB LED’s. The curtain can be programmed to have 8 zones with full control of RGB for each zone. They chose another programming option for their Chrismas concerts which allowed them to use built-in chases, effects and color options.

The design also used cloth columns backlit with RGB LED spots plus commercial white LED twinkle lights. They used 119″ of poly silk–an ideal surface for projection, diffusion and lighting. All fabrics were fire-rated and contained all documentation for their fire marshall.

The upfront costs, although high, were quickly funded from outside sources, without impacting normal cash flow for the church. Those donors saw the benefit to the ministry for years to come.

Note: Present your idea to the congregation. You might be surprised how much people want to help–financially and physically!

They started by making light boxes out of 4×8 sheets of styrofoam–2 inches thick. They used an overhead projector to trace on the stencils of snowflakes. Then they used a hot knife to cut out the snowflakes, painted all the outside of the boxes flat black (exterior paint) and stretched white spandex over the inside of the white boxes.

They put one Color Kinetics Color Blaster in each light box. The different sizes of the snowflakes were: one 12′x12′; four 8′x8′; four 4′x4′ boxes. They hung strand LED lighting from IKEA on the side walls and did an overall wash with Color Blasters.

They had a few minutes to setup, an extremely limited budget, and a stage only 9 feet deep. Since the screen comes down right behind the curtain they kept everything up front.

They took a music stand and popped the top off. Then they placed a pipe down the center of the stand so that it was now 8 feet tall. They drilled a hole in the pipe and used a hanger to create a loop to hang the material from. The star was from a dollar store and painted white. The material cost $5 from WalMart.

Then they back lit it with a garage light and used an end table for the wreath.

On the right hand side of the stage they put up a little Dollar Tree 4ft tree ($8) and a tall candle stand pillar ($1 garage sale). Then they cut “Faith” out of foam board.

Their biggest expense was battery operated candles!

The red fabric represents the Gospel, the Scarlet cord stretched through eternity to save us in the winter of our our own souls – one 10 yard piece of crushed red silk.

The back wall is one piece of bleached muslin. They projected onto it from the front about 40 ft. away (just above the heads of the musicians).

The trees were made of rabbit-proof fence wiring from their local Menards (Home Depot or Lowes). They covered them with white sheets and painted the details. They used rebar tie-wire to suspend the trees and branches from their grid. Then they added in some real branches to sell it.

The painted the stage walls and roof black to make all the elements pop out.

Promo Video:

To create the set they took old frames that they found in their attics (and on craigslist) and turned them into 2-D Christmas presents. Then they lined the stage with rope light and gaudy gold garland. The middle screen was a re-purposed white background piece from John’s camera rig (the other side is green for chroma key). They also took down their two large side screens and built two massive picture frames that they aged out of trim molding.

They started the set by collecting a few dying trees in the woods near their property. They painted them white with a paint gun and cemented them in mop buckets (two in each). Once the cement tried they pulled off the buckets and wrapped them in sheer white fabric.

To create the fluffy snowballs they ordered paper lanterns in 3 different sizes. Then they purchased white, metallic silver, and deep blue tissue paper. They cut the tissue paper into small squares and hot glued them tightly to the lanterns. Then they strung the lanterns together with white Christmas ribbon using tape to reinforce the holds. Then they hung!

The fabric was just long pieces of white, non-stretch fabric and the larger “gathered ” pieces were sheer . They lit it all with 32 LED fixtures from the top and bottom.

The only cost for the stage was the lanterns and the tissue paper–everything else was in-house.

They started by making their own Mary and Joseph figures.

They added white Christmas lights to their back wall– behind a tulle-like fabric that they doubled up for texture.

They added some real trees from a local nursery that they lit up with Christmas lights.

Finally they added paper lanterns with a self install kit that companies offer using a couple of colors and varied sizes.

They went purposefully minimalistic. The set cost them AU$300 (about $306 USD).

They used 3m x 3m LED curtain lights which twinkled gently as the backdrop. They intentionally let the LED curtains sag so they wouldn’t line up horizontally.

They built the Christmas trees on the sides from standard rope light trees. They just hung them from the ceiling rather than using the floor frame that came with them.

They used 4 LED P64 cans at the base of each tree creating two effects. The first was on the white plastic stripping on the underside of the rope light and then on the roof, creating a cool spiraling effect.

Their concept for the design came from my own design, 4th Grade Christmas. But they really made it their own.

• First they built a forest of trees to mimic their series graphic. It was almost identical. The trees were built out of cardboard. They projected the tree design, traced, cut out, painted, and used extra cardboard to build their bases with duct tape.
• Then they built a cabin using cardboard cement tubes (cut in half). The cabin was where the drummer would live during this series. Roof was cardboard with 1×1′s on it. Painted green.
• They built stars out of metal wire
• Then they added light boxes for presents. They used white paper over wooden frames.
• The words “Christmas Presence” was cut out of Foamcore.
• They also carried the design out to the lobby with a miniature version.

Total cost: $250.

They started with a flat black wall and pinned different snowflake styles to the three walls to create a wind blown effect. They bought the snowflakes at a local party store, home improvement store, and online. They used 4″ – 12″ plastic, paper and styrofoam snowflakes.

Then they added Christmas trees cut from 2′ x 8′ x 2″ poly bead board (bought at their local builders supply store). The total cost of the set was around $250.

They opted out of the nativity scene and went with clean Christmas lights. They purchased about 40 boxes of 25 ft. long Christmas lights and hung them with nylon ties. They divided them into 3 separate dimmer channels so they had the ability to create subtle movements and a more interesting look with some variance in the light strands’ brightness.

Tyler was looking for a centerpiece star and found a 26 point Moravian star from a church across town. They had two skinny Christmas trees stored away and used some white batiste sheer fabric from a previous design to cover the excess length of the light strands and give a snow type effect. They spent about $100 for Christmas lights and $30 for the Moravian star.

The design consisted of dead tree branches, artificial Christmas trees, some metal trussing and some LED lights. They built the whole set for under $100.

Lights used:
- American DJ P64 LED Par Cans (8)
- Chauvet COLORdash Batten (6)

Tree design by Tammy Wasko-Moletz

They wanted to represent the advent wreath in a different way. So, inspired by all of the coroplast (corrugated plastic) columns on the site, they decided to make their advent wreath in a similar fashion. They bought their Coroplast from Piedmont Plastics (a nation-wide company).

They welded a frame together after figuring out the dimensions and with some recessed can lighting from the big box home improvement stores they were set to build the candles. To color each vertical column representing the candles they just used lighting gels. The middle candle measured 4 foot tall and each outside candle was about 3 feet. Each week they turned on another “candle.”

This Christmas design consisted of 20 4×8 sheets of corrugated plastic, large buffalo snow blankets, bases and pipes used for pipe and drape (rented), Gorilla tape, white pvc tape, and 12 LED lights (rented).

The trees were traced on corrugated plastic using a graphic projected with an old overhead projector. They were then cut out using utility razors. The seams were taped together using clear packing tape on the back and white pvc tape on the front. They were taped to the pipes with Gorilla tape. The pipes were then placed on 35lb metal bases. Trees with light behind them were painted on the backside with white interior paint to prevent the shadows of the pips and tape being seen.

Then they ordered a large snow blanket online and added gobo snowflakes around the room. Awesome!

They started by purchasing 20 12ft galvanized metal panels at Lowes ($17 each) and 7′x17′ of black fabric from a fabric store ($65). They had a member of their church that works in a fabrication workhouse cut the metal pieces with a waterjet. Then they outlined each tree with Coroplast from a previous stage design. They reinforced each tree with wood braces on the backs.

Their biggest cost was the LED tree branches on each side of the drum riser and lining the front of the stage. They found those at Target for $22 each (white ones) and $27 each (red ones). They put the tree branches in small black trash cans they found at a dollar store and filled them with sand from Lowes. They added an LED rope light across the stage (85 feet long) from NoveltyLighting.com (cost $150).

They hung the large piece of fabric below their screen in the back to create the illusion of a deep background.

They also added the “Merry Christmas” on the front of the stage from two 4×8′ foam boards from Lowes.

The trees on the floor were from a past Christmas design with white and red LED lights. The snow flakes were from another design, made from 4×8 foam insulation sheathing.

All lighting was LED lighting with the exception of their white front spots.

They started by covering the back of the stage with a sheer fabric purchased from Rosebrand fabrics. Next they cut down trees from their property to various heights and painted them with white flat paint to look frosted. They attached bases to the trees created out of 2×4′s and placed them on stage.

Then they cut multiple sizes of snowflakes from 4×8 foam insulation sheathing purchased from Home Depot. They painted them with glossy white paint and suspended them from fishing line in the auditorium and hallways. Joshua used chicken wire to create mounds at the bases of the trees and covered them with foam snow padding. He placed two gas lamp posts and a number of poinsettias around to finish off the look.

Once the lighting was set they added two snow machines to create their environment.

They carried the theme throughout the building too.

Each week of the series had a “buzz” word that they cut out of the foam sheathing. They hung the words on the wall in the main hallway and changed them on stage to correspond with each week.

The biggest expense was the fabric. They found it on clearance for $400. The foam, the paint, and rollers cost around $150. The rest was repurposed material.

Side note: The foam cuts like butter with a rotozip. (like a big drimmel. $15 @ harbor freight)

They constructed 4 store fronts–each 8′ wide and varying heights up to 14′. The windows and doors of the stores were actually a digital projection from behind. They covered the openings with a white, translucent fabric they found at a fabric store. Then they used 3 ultra short throw projectors to put up images of the inside of each store. They also used the projectors for graphics and motion backgrounds during the worship set.

The 2,500 lumen projectors are Hitatchi ultra short throw and only need 3-5 feet of throw depending on the side of the screen.

This design was a combination of ingenuity and many volunteer hours. They used paper chains for nearly every element of staging!

The “snow drifts” were made from plastic cups with lights poking through. The realistic “moon” was made with a photographic print on clear plastic, mounted on a 4″ section of a large “Sonotube” (round fiberboard concrete form), then backlit using a round fluorescent light fixture.

The back wall used the concept of “negative space” with hanging paper chains above, stopping short of the floor to create the illusion of white, snow covered trees (white gossamer fabric) contrasting with a night sky (dark blue paper chains).

The hanging “trees” were made using frameworks of stiff wire, to which the paper chains were attached. Lighting was done with 43 Martin and Robe intelligent fixtures.

The design was inexpensive…but took a long time to create.

At the beginning of the service, they had large, wrapped presents on the stage. They had gift tags with words like “grace, peace, joy, etc.”

After the pastor’s message, the worship team sand and an artist came on stage to unwrap each present. She stacked them together to reveal the image of Jesus that she painted earlier in the week. The goal was to communicate that all those gifts are found in Christ. He is God’s gift to the world.

In total they spent about $150 for boxes, paint and wrapping paper.

To create a design that emphasized light, he started by asking church members to bring lamps from home. They bought about fifty 40w light bulbs so all the lamps would be consistent and patched them all through their light board so they could dim the lamps.

The giant “Illuminate” letters were made out of foam sheathing used for insulation. When people walked in the room was dark with blacklights lighting up the “Illuminate” letters.

The only things they bought were sheathing and white paint ($100 in total).

The set is simply a bunch of light bulbs hung at random heights. They built them from lamp cord, ada-tap connectors, and lamp bases. They used zip ties to up the slack and get the desired heights. They also put them on dimmers so they could blacken the background or get a nice start effect.

Lamp Cords, ADA-Taps Male, ADA-Taps Female, Lamp Bases