Prestonwood's Youth Facility

An Expansive Church Stage Lighting System & Scenic Renovation Project

Prestonwood Baptist Church is a multi-site megachurch with its main campus in Plano, TX and a second campus in Prosper, TX. Prestonwood is one of the largest churches in America, with a membership of over 43,000 people. The Plano campus covers an area of 140 acres and includes a 7,000-seat worship center, a 550-seat chapel, a Pre-K through 12^th grade school (including a football stadium, a baseball field, and a field house for basketball and volleyball), a fitness center with outdoor sports fields, a café, a library, and a bookstore. In addition, they have their own dedicated 700-seat Youth Facility that was built in 2004. The latest in church stage lighting and church speakers is was crucial to providing a powerful service that reaches every seat in the house.

Prestonwood reached out to Paragon 360 in January of 2018 for the expansive renovation of the Youth Facility. The project would include updating the church lighting system to establish a modern look and feel, an all new AVL church speakers system for consistent volume, and correcting significant acoustical issues within the building. Paragon 360, who has been working with Prestonwood Baptist Church on various projects for over 17 years, was selected for their ability to compete the entire project in a turn-key, design-build approach on a short timeline.

Transformed Experience Through Custom Scenic Elements

Paragon 360 led the renovation effort for the $3.5M project. One of the biggest objectives of the project was to completely transform the experience in the space, top to bottom. The church needed the youth space to be versatile, as it's one of the most used spaces in the building, incorporating a wide range of services and events from small to large.

Because of these unique needs, Paragon 360 designed and provided multiple custom scenic and staging elements for the space. Included in those elements were large 13’ wide by 20’ high illuminated tracking walls that can be rolled on and off the stage, allowing the stage opening to be shrunk down for smaller events and opened up for large events. Lateral movement of the walls allow for multiple setups on the stage, adding to the venue’s flexibility. Custom illuminated wall treatments, right and left in the audience space, allow for a very intimate and immersive experience throughout the space. The side wall treatments and movable stage walls all tie into a custom built, illuminated front of stage facade. All of the custom units were designed, built, and installed by Paragon 360, adding to the versatility of the space while enhancing the intimacy and greatly improving the engagement.

One of the concerns going into the renovation of the Prestonwood youth space was a lack of clarity caused by an acoustically reverberant environment. Before designing a high-quality audio system for the space, our audio team knew that acoustics had to be addressed. To bring the room under control and achieve the intelligibility required, Paragon 360 treated the walls with over 5,500 square feet of 2” acoustic treatment using the FabriTRAK acoustical wall and ceiling system. This solution allowed us to improve the acoustics while accentuating the aesthetics we were providing through our scenic elements. An additional 1,680 square feet of Bass Buster was applied to help control the low end. The result is a well-controlled space that allows for high vocal intelligibility and lends itself well to audio reinforcement for both speech and music.

The loudspeaker system in the main room consists of two nine-box LINA arrays from Meyer Sound, each backed up by three 750-LFC low frequency cabinets arranged in a cardioid vertical hang next to each array. Three UPQ-1P point source loudspeakers provide extreme left and right fill as well as center fill. Front fill was provided by eight UP-4XP. With the space being primarily for youth activities, excellent low frequency performance was a design consideration and the two 1100-LFC subwoofers did not disappoint.

Front of House mixing duties were accomplished on a DiGiCo SD5 console, complete with an SD stage rack that incorporates all of the floor pocket inputs. Two remote SD-Mini Stage Racks located on stage feature all 32-bit Stadius input cards and Dante integration. Musicians were provided in-ear monitoring using the Roland M-48 system coupled with Shure PSM 1000 wireless systems.

The main room is flanked by two lobbies for high school and junior high ages respectively. The high school lobby has its own Meyer Sound system consisting of two UPA-1Ps and a USW-1P subwoofer. The junior high lobby is reinforced with high power QSC Acoustic Design ceiling speakers. A Q-Sys Core110f directs traffic for all three spaces and provides audio source selection for each zone and control of devices such as the Meyer Sound Galaxy processor and playback devices. This design allows for easy operation of the sound system for smaller events where an engineer is not required.

To complement the new church stage lighting and audio system, the video installation for Prestonwood’s Youth Facility was focused on their desire for the students and other users of the building to feel included with what was happening on stage. A Primeview 39’ 4” wide x 16’ 4” tall LED Display screen was a perfect solution for this need. The Epic Series 3.9mm Direct View video display covers the majority of the stage’s back wall, giving the audience a stunning display that is easily seen from every aspect of the room. Content on the LED Display is controlled by Pro Video Player software running on a Mac Pro, allowing the church full and easy control on the screen.

The main video switcher is Ross Carbonite Solo 13 frame with a CB-1 control surface. The system includes a Ross 34 x 34 3G/SDI Router. The main camera is a Sony HDC3100 with CCU and Remote. A Riedel MediorNet Compact was installed and interfaced to the church’s MediorNet communications infrastructure to provide hardwired production intercom, digital video and audio tie lines and Bolero Wireless Intercom capability.

Paragon 360 also installed three Panasonic 84” displays and two 65” displays in the Youth Facility for Digital Signage displays. Content distribution and scheduling for the digital signage system is provided by Bright Sign XD234 players.

The new lighting Systems designed for Prestonwood's Youth Facility renovation were chosen with versatility in mind, preparing the space for a variety of uses. Prestonwood wanted a brighter and more vibrant space than before appealing to its younger audience. Paragon 360 answered the need with Chroma-Q Inspire XT fixtures, which gave the church the ability to flood the entire room with color and light. The new stage lighting was transformed to an all LED lighting system, removing the need for a traditional dimming. Moving light fixtures include the new Vari-Lite VL2600 Spot, as well as the Chauvet Rogue R3 Wash fixtures, and the front lighting features the Chauvet Ovation E-910FC ellipsoidal fixtures. Easy and safe access to this equipment was important, so Paragon 360 included the ETC Prodigy P1 family of hoists, including the compact Cable Management System for a clean installation. DMX control was networked using ETC Gateways, and the entire system can be controlled with the grandMA3 Lighting Console, which provides the latest advancements in control concepts. The custom scenic and staging elements provided by Paragon 360 include interior LED illumination built in.