Stage Designs

Four Corners

Derik Armstrong from Frenchport Church in Camden, AR brings us this great stage transformation.

Derik and his team had a small, old church established in 1943 they wanted to modernize.

So they created these towers from 4’x8′ sheets of Coroplast. They cut the Coroplast with a “plasti-cut”, and the dimensions ended up being 8’x16″x8″. They outlined the boxes with “L” molding bought from Home Depot and hot glue. Then at the base of each tower there used a wooden box to help maintain shape of the towers. They used LED lights inside and controlled them manually from the dip switches.

The old speaker boxes in the top corners were simply up-lights from Home Depot with a 5-watt LED bulb in it that changes color with a remote. He cut some Coroplast to fit the boxes.

Derik got his banners printed from www.echodgraphics.com. The main banner (8×10) was $129 and the side banners (8×3) were $43 each. The banners allow them to vary the look for series’/seasons and hide the baptistry when they aren’t using it.

To adjust the lighting in the room they placed track lighting all along the front of the stage area. They also used three can spotlights (residential) on either side with LED color changing bulbs in them (from www.hero-ledstore.com for $29 each). Then they bought paper pulldown shades from Home Depot for $5 to cover their windows.

Finally they painted the stage a grayish brown color. Then they put the drum stage on casters so they could move the drums for baptisms.

Mountains of Light Glistening Brightly

15 responses to “Four Corners”

  1. Dustin says:

    This is one of my favorite posts yet! I love the big designs, but without much lighting capability in our own room, the designs just look silly in our application. Thanks so much for this!
    Does anyone know how strong/what type of LEDs were used?
    Great job!

    • Cody says:

      I love it! Simple and looks so good!

    • pastorderik says:

      we used the chavolet b152's they were $100 ea from musicians friend. thanks for the compliments! It was a difficult challenge to get a traditional church to look this way but we are proud of it

  2. Kim says:

    The set up of our stage is almost identical. Love this idea!

  3. pastorderik says:

    The biggest work project that was done, you cant really see…we ran 2-12 wire from the stage to the crows nest to place all of the lighting in the church upstairs and on dimmer switches. It has changed the way we do things!

  4. Cody says:

    What color/brand paint did you paint the back wall? It’s a great alternative to a black wall for that style sanctuary.

    • pastorderik says:

      It is a color called "Crushed Macadam Gray" It is a brownish gray and came from…..WALMART!
      It was a great alternative because our church's design and colors went with this much better.

  5. Dynasty says:

    Looks great! I used to attend Frenchport Church so I can really see the transformation. A few years before the "original photo" the entire sanctuary was painted to update the small space. Now with the new stage, the place looks modern. Kudos to Pastor Derik and the creative team for bringing the church up-to-date, in a professional way.

  6. Amy V says:

    Awesome Pastor Derik! I've gotta go back to see it.

  7. mark says:

    were did you get the coroplast and what thickness is it 2mm or 4mm thanks and the stage looks awesome

    • Not sure on the thickness. It is stout enough to stand on its own and I would compare it to a cardboard box thickness. I bough it from a local sign store for about $8 for a 4×8 sheet. Any business that prints signs should have coroplast in stock. Hope this helps.

      • Clayton Bell says:

        I LOVE this, so might ask some specific questions!
        >Did you buy it in white or is there another color?
        >I looks like you build a wood base, thin wood frames, and then a wood top?
        >Is the frame on the outside of the coroplat?
        >Any other suggestions or such on in building it?

        GREAT work!

  8. I bought it in white. There are other colors but I don’t know how well it would work lighting it up. We gave color changing LED cans that we are able to do alot different colors.

    We did build a wood base
    I built them 16x8to to be able to male the rectangle out pf th16x8x16x8e 4x8crowd sheet. 48in….16x8x16x8. There is a wood top as well that was attached w hot glue.

    The sides are painted L molding from home depot. There is no frame to support the tower inside. The molding is hot.glued on.

    We cut a V in the base in the back to let the cords out. I bolted the lights t the floor and set the towers on top. If I want to change colors I just pick up the tower. It was pretty easy. We cut the first layer of the coroplast w a plastic cut tool and bent it in the tower shape and hot glued the open side.

    Thanks for the comments! If I can help in anyway let me know!

  9. Doug Mickan says:

    Are the banners made of vinyl, or another material? Very cool, and amazing transformation.

  10. coupon says:

    Hi! I could have sworn I’ve been to this site before but after reading through some of the post I realized it’s new to me.
    Anyways, I’m definitely happy I found it and I’ll be bookmarking
    and checking back frequently!

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