Church Lighting

Kyle,

Hopefully I can shed some light on how we set ours up and it will help you. I am the lighting director at Saddleback in Lake Forest.

We used to do one long cue list that, as you noticed, would lead to long periods of programming time. About a year ago, I set a new system that seems to fit the bill perfectly and the volunteers really like.

I have 4 pages for weekend services (2 for Sat night and Sun morning and 2 for Sunday night).
Each fader is it's own event (walk-in, welcome, song, pastor welcome, song, song, song, message, offering, closing announcements/song)
We keep a notebook at FOH for every song we program to be able to repeat as needed by loading the appropriate list
I made a "busk" view on the console that opens up the cuelist window and splits it on each touch screen to allow for live busking that isn't programmed into the show.

Now, all of that said, the songs are built around a single main position (BAND). This way, when we are setup on Saturday, I update the "BAND" position and all of the songs are updated appropriately. Any other positions for moves, etc. stay the same it's just their base positions that are modified. Most of the songs are built according to verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus...depending on the song. In the comment field, I label it with the lyric line that it needs to run on.

All message cues (welcome, message, announcements) are changed appropriately when the stage setup changes (for us about every 6 months).

With all of that base work, my workflow for Saturdays consist of helping get the stage set, updating the "BAND" position, and then loading the faders with the appropriate song or event based on the order of worship. I change all of the "comment macros" so that the next list is automatically chosen when the last cue of the list runs. This allows the volunteer to just keep pushing play and not worry about where things are. The comment macros also handle the page changes as needed if there are lots of songs, etc.

Hope that helps...don't hesitate to ask if you need more information.

J

Kyle,

Hopefully I can shed some light on how we set ours up and it will help you. I am the lighting director at Saddleback in Lake Forest.

We used to do one long cue list that, as you noticed, would lead to long periods of programming time. About a year ago, I set a new system that seems to fit the bill perfectly and the volunteers really like.

I have 4 pages for weekend services (2 for Sat night and Sun morning and 2 for Sunday night).
Each fader is it's own event (walk-in, welcome, song, pastor welcome, song, song, song, message, offering, closing announcements/song)
We keep a notebook at FOH for every song we program to be able to repeat as needed by loading the appropriate list
I made a "busk" view on the console that opens up the cuelist window and splits it on each touch screen to allow for live busking that isn't programmed into the show.

Now, all of that said, the songs are built around a single main position (BAND). This way, when we are setup on Saturday, I update the "BAND" position and all of the songs are updated appropriately. Any other positions for moves, etc. stay the same it's just their base positions that are modified. Most of the songs are built according to verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus...depending on the song. In the comment field, I label it with the lyric line that it needs to run on.

All message cues (welcome, message, announcements) are changed appropriately when the stage setup changes (for us about every 6 months).

With all of that base work, my workflow for Saturdays consist of helping get the stage set, updating the "BAND" position, and then loading the faders with the appropriate song or event based on the order of worship. I change all of the "comment macros" so that the next list is automatically chosen when the last cue of the list runs. This allows the volunteer to just keep pushing play and not worry about where things are. The comment macros also handle the page changes as needed if there are lots of songs, etc.

Hope that helps...don't hesitate to ask if you need more information.

J