St Dunstan’s Church Liverpool LED Stage Lighting Installation

LED stage lighting installation to a church with device-operated lighting control

St Dunstan’s Church in Liverpool is a liberal, inclusive Anglican Church of the sacramental, Catholic tradition. Built in the late 19th Century, it is an imposing and impressive Victorian building and is designated by English Heritage as Grade II* listed. The church required LED stage lighting to maximise the space for a number of community uses.

The Reverend, Mark Waters, had ambitions to light the superb nave and alter to enhance services, but also to allow the church to be used by local groups during the week in various ways. The LED stage lighting systems form the final stage of a massive project to refurbish the church making it a more welcoming, modern and flexible space.

To maximise the use of the church space and allow for his freedom of movement, Rev. Mark Waters did not want a lighting desk installed and opted instead for LightFactory. This is a software based lighting control system which offers traditional dimmer control and fully featured moving light support. The church can operate their LED stage lighting system wirelessly via laptop, tablet or smartphone.

The Grade II listed status dictated that all fixtures and fittings had to be carefully selected, and the installation was as unassuming as possible.

For this project we:

• Installed 2 x 20.0m internally wired lighting bars, anodised black to help assimilate into the church aesthetic. The light bars are populated to facilitate LED stage lighting and intelligent fixtures.
• The church does not have a vast incoming power supply so we advised the benefits of LED stage lighting. Further advantages of resulted in the church included the ability to alter colour states from the control console, lower running costs and inherent lower maintenance costs, as the fixtures would be difficult to access for the church staff. (Further benefits of LED)
• Provided 20 x Philips PL1 LED profiles suspended from the lighting bars and focused in conjunction with the church to provide a bright wash down the centre of the church nave
• Lighting control is provided by a laptop loaded with the Light Factory 1 Universe system offering a versatile lighting control solution for the computer savvy church.
• To keep the wiring impact to a minimum, we provided a wireless DMX system comprising 2 x Micro R-512 DMX receivers, fitting one to each lighting bar and a Micro F-1 transmitter that connects with the control laptop. This ensures the operator can move around the church as different events dictate and not restricted to a single wired position.
• Used Mineral-insulated copper-clad cable (MICC) to blend in with the stone background of the church and, therefore, minimise the appearance of the wire.

Completion Date: April 2014
Approx. Value: £25,000
Overall Schedule: 2 weeks

To find out more about St Dunstan’s Church visit www.stdunstansliverpool.org.uk or follow their Facebook page.