Special Event Design

Castles in the Sand

Dustin Pead from Friendship Church in Greenwood, IN put sand and a sand castle all over their stage.

They did a summer series called “At The Beach” taking some biblical truths and applying them through the filter of your experience at the beach. Their stage is kind of small but they decided to purchase a truck load of sand to pour all over the front half, keeping the visual appearance without getting too much into their electronics toward the back half of the stage.

The sand cost $160. They bought a 10ft x 100ft roll of 4mil plastic and taped it down to the sand coverage area before bringing in the sand. They dumped the sand outside their auditorium, then brought it in with wheel barrels and buckets, then smoothed it out with a big brush. They created three “dunes” with the sand at different spots on stage.

For the 3-foot sand castle, they decided, in order for it to hold up, they would build it out of spare plywood and adhere some sandcastle molds to it ($1 each x 8). Once built, they spray painted ($4 x 2 cans) the molds and wood with a sand colored paint designed for wood and plastic. Then they took a $4 bag of sandbox sand and a can of spray glue ($11) and glittered the whole castle with sand, making it look like a sandcastle. They sunk the finished product into their center sand dune on stage.

They filled in some blank spaces on stage with live 4ft palm trees ($11 each).

Lastly, they used their stage LED par lights to give the stage a warm, sunshine look. ($60 each x 6)

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Boxes of Fruit Shattered Spandex

2 responses to “Castles in the Sand”

  1. That is some crazy cleanup afterwards!

  2. Matthew W says:

    Very nice. I like that this wasn’t just a “hey, this would be a nifty set piece” but that it was a visual for the sermon, bringing the sense of sight to work with the sense of hearing. Speaking of hearing…did you have some ambient noise loop in the back? You know, the sound of waves or a seagull? Because that would have made my Sunday if was in that service. Anyway, great idea.

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