Stage Designs

Throwback: Stacked Triangles

Sean Bolinger from Christian Faith Center in Federal Way, WA brings us this stacked triangles stage design. (Originally posted November 2013)

This was their stage design for their Celebrate 2013 Women’s conference and also their fall season stage design. The graphic for the conference had triangles all over it so Sean decided to start there.

They created the triangles out of 1/2″ plywood and painted all the pieces white. The side triangles were four different sized triangles that were spaced apart by a 6″ piece of wood. And in between each piece they put a RGB LED strip light.

The center piece was built as two halves and on the face they made a “T” sticking off the front, made out of 1″x6″ and on the inside of that “T” they put in the same RGB LED strips. The two center pieces were also on a track system so they could open and close it for special entrances during the conference and also for load in and out from their garage door behind the center piece. The center was also not a complete triangle, after it passed the bottom of the projector screen it cut off so they wouldn’t have to waste material that wouldn’t be seen.

They also hung 40 strands of Christmas lights hooked up to a dimmer on the dark sides of the screen. They spent $1000 on the LED strips/DMX controller/Power supply and $700 on all the other supplies.

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Building

The Wonder of Christmas Monitor Wall

28 responses to “Throwback: Stacked Triangles”

  1. Christopher Milani says:

    What brand of LED strips did you guys use? them seem very bright compares to some others I’ve seen.

  2. John says:

    Great look love the depth and color

  3. Cameron says:

    I’d also love to know more about those LED strips. This is such a clean looking design. Very nice!

  4. Sean B says:

    Thanks!
    We got the LED strips here:
    http://www.environmentallights.com/13497-rgbddrf-reel-10.html
    We have implemented these in several designs now just because they are so bright and work so well, some of the other designs we have on this site feature those strips as well, I encourage you to check them out!
    Those are found here:
    https://churchstagedesignideas.com/future-shapes/
    https://churchstagedesignideas.com/grate/

  5. Brady says:

    Sean, whats the model # for the DMX controller you use (did you use a lighting software as well)? Roughly, how many reels did you use for this project?

    • Sean B. says:

      We have a Congo lighting board that we use to control the LED lights but the lights have to be hooked up to a DMX decoder that you buy. They also require a power supply. I guess in my description I said we bought a ‘DMX controller’, I was referring to the DMX decoder.
      The links below are for the decoder and power supplies we’ve purchased.

      DMX decoder
      http://www.environmentallights.com/14828-dmx-24-2000s.html
      Power supply
      http://www.environmentallights.com/13669-sp-240-12.html

      We used around 11 reels for this project, 5 of which were from a set we previously had up.

      • Trevor Ferge says:

        Did you only need one dmx decoder and power supply for all 11 reels? or how many did you need? thinking of doing this for christmas at our church.

        • Sean B. says:

          Since we have used this product several times now we have a bit of a stock pile of the supplies offered on the website. For this specific project we used around 11 strands, but these strands are able to be cut to length and attached together, which is why we have 12 different runs of the LED’s even though we only used 11 reels. Each reel is around 16.4 ft., and that uses 40 watts, so we used two 240watt power supplies for the 11 reels, which used 440 watts of the 480 watts available. And for the DMX decoders we wanted to be able to control each run of LED individually so we could make colorful scenes and build fun chases. So we used this, which controls 8 runs-
          http://www.environmentallights.com/14828-dmx-24-2000s.html
          Then we used 4 of these to control the other 4 runs-
          http://www.environmentallights.com/14343-dmx-4-5000-3.html

          Hope this makes sense and helps you out, their website has all the technical specs and the company has really good customer help. If you do this for Christmas I’d love to see how it turns out for you!

          • Brady says:

            Sean , is there anything cheaper to run/control the lights instead of the Congo mixer board (roughly $5K, yikes!). I ordered the LED reels, Decoder, and power supplies. Just need the controller/mixer for the lights. Please let me know, God bless.

          • Cameron says:

            Brady: You definitely don’t need a Congo, that’s some pretty advanced lighting control. There are several DMX controllers that don’t break the bank $100-500 that would better suit your needs. Look at the decoders you ordered and add up the number of DMX channels they offer. The decoder linked above is 24 channels, so you would need at least a 24 channel controller. Or if your church already has a lighting console, you should check to see if it has DMX out with enough open channels to facilitate the lighting. How familiar are you with the DMX protocol?

  6. RAY ARNOLD says:

    GREAT JOB SEAN!! looking through this and bumped into you work…you’ve always done a great job. Proud of you!
    Lov

  7. Karsten O. says:

    Hey we are looking to do something similar for our new year launch. Looking at different lighting options cuz budget is a little tighter… We found a site but just wanna kinda check out if it is the same thing or similar or not at all. Have never boughten lighting before so just wanna make sure that we are getting something similar. http://www.dhgate.com/product/10m-smd-5050-led-strip-light-5m-150leds-rgb/160747315.html#s1-9-1|4008016799 are these similar? Thanks so much for the inspiration!

    Karsten

    • Sean B says:

      Those look similar but I didn’t see if they were controllable from a lighting console, so it depends on what you want to do. Also they probably won’t be as bright and intense as the more expensive ones that we’ve purchased, but on our stage if it’s not bright then it’ll be hard to see, that might not be the case for you. Hope they work out for ya!

  8. Brady says:

    Thanks for the reply Cameron, new to this so not familiar at all. Could you email me?

    Bl.sical@gmail.com

    • Sean B says:

      Hey Brady, ya we have had our Congo board for seven years and we control all the room and stage lighting in our sanctuary with it, plus any special stage set/lights we get. So something like that would be extreme over kill for just a project like this. But ya like Cameron said there are many far cheaper options.

      • Brady says:

        Sean, you wouldn’t have the dimensions on hand by any chance? Buying material today, also, did you use CDX, OSB or a finish grade sheathing? Did you frame the smaller triangles, gable wall framing style or some sort of outriggers? Just trying to get my head straight before I start building it, haha, thanks. Again , awesome design

  9. Brady says:

    Was the white paint finish flat or glossy?

  10. Mike says:

    I cant find the information on the link you attached. Are the LEDs flicker-free? We also do broadcast video and so that is a big concern for us.

  11. Sean B. says:

    The information about flickering is on the dmx decoders page. We’ve used this product in different ways for over three years now and we’ve never experienced flickering of any type on any of our cameras. we also do broadcast video so that is a big deal to us as well. Here is some links to the decoders we use. Hope this helps!

    http://www.environmentallights.com/14828-dmx-24-2000s.html
    http://www.environmentallights.com/14343-dmx-4-5000-3.html
    http://www.environmentallights.com/14344-dmx-4-5000-5.html

  12. Those lights are really nice. I like how you can change the colors. Very dynamic.

  13. Are your triangles 6″ apart or is that a 2″ by 6″ separating the triangles which the LED strip lies on?

  14. Robert the triangles were separated by a piece of wood that was 6″ wide and the LED strips laid on top of that. You can kind of see it on the bottom photo.

  15. Tim says:

    Any info on the drum and keyboard riser? That looks pretty cool.

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