New Facility: Tech Budgets

[rjwalker]

Update:

The plans are finalized, the PR has been intense, the project goes for a vote next week.

Decisions have been made with little understanding of the audio/visual consequences of those decisions, but with emotional factors ("light is nice") predominating. No acoustic expertise has been consulted other than an "acoustics expert" (I don't know what his/her qualifications actually are) who works for the tech supplier assuring us that technology will cure all problems.

FWIW, I have visited 3 church facilities with "contemporary" music with stages on the long side of a gym sized room. The A/V budgets for the 3 have ranged from $100,000 to $225,000 - all have linear array speaker systems.

In all three, during rehearsals, the sound has been, at best, IMO, "adequate" with very muddy/mushy highs, very boomy bass at the rear of the rooms (even with extensive baffling- although I don't know the specs/quality) and a wide variation of sound quality in various parts of the rooms.

I myself will be voting against the project (paper ballots)

I am at a loss as to the degree to which, if any, I will raise questions in the discussion before the vote.

The project is the result of a lot of work by several powerful figures in the church with egos to match their wallets.


Thoughts and prayers will be welcome

Namaste

[jonack]

Namaste,

Sorry to hear that things are not going so well with the whole project. Sometimes the best thing for a building project is for it not to go until all of the funds are there for it. We had a project that got cut from almost by 75%, and I wish that we would have said that we couldn't do it...

[[Admin] danroth]

I have a friend whose church just came $25,000 short after nine months of collecting pledges for a $2,000,000 building campaign. He decided not to do the building, saying that if they couldn't do it right, they weren't going to do it.

He also said that, given their church size and demographics, the pledges should have been about 20% oversubscribed. He thought it showed tepid commitment, and that it was unwise to go forward.

I think that was the right decision for their church. However, their church is in an upper-middle-class, growing, suburban environment with a big emphasis on corporate-style quality.

We're an inner-city church. Our entire offering income over the last 7 years wouldn't cover a $300,000 media budget. We do things in a very DIY manner, mostly with donated, scavenged, or low-price used equipment. Our prized values are ingenuity and a "we can get it done" attitude. We may be scruff around the edges, but we don't do too bad. So a $10,000 budget was right for us 6 years ago when we had a $10,000 donation designated for media. (and that included a $6,000 projector that would cost about $1,500 nowadays).

Our budget seems kinda funny looking back, but it was roughly:
$6000 projector
$1000 mixing board
$2000 for amps/speakers
$1000 for computer, snake, and cables

We went with PowerPoint (bundled with the computer) for a few years until we were able to afford worship software. We also projected on the wall for a few years until we could afford a screen.
We obvious didn't have stuff installed, but we did the best job we could of running things behind poles and along walls so that the snake isn't too obvious.

Okay, I've obviously turned this into a self-indulgent discussion about us instead of answering your question, but I hope it helps make the point that media budgets vary significantly by the vision and resources God has given you.

I'd also add that if I was looking at a project that size, I'd probably bring in a well-qualified consultant. It's worth a few thousand dollars to avoid really messing up a quarter-milllion-dollar install. (or at least it's nice to have someone else to blame)

[cmchamp]

rj & others.
I've been approached by a church building design/build firm to work with them regarding the acoustic treatments of their projects. Almost every other 'acoustician' has simply prescribed placement of pre-fab manufactured products that cost the church body more than necessary for something they could build themselves for less and do the job more correctly. It honestly doesn't take much time to properly design a correct room, and in the instance of gymnatoria, sometimes just breaking up a wall with closet space and properly designed doors is a big plus. Large rooms with hard surfaces will be inarticulate on the bottom end because the LF energy just rolls around the room. It takes a lot of properly designed treatments to correct for that.
There is no substitute for a properly designed room, even if it is a gymnatoria.
Praying that things go His way. Sometimes His way is putting a body through a project like this to separate the chaff. I don't mean that in a harsh way, just experience of how He works sometimes. Those well rooted and fruited in Him will thrive, remember that.

C.

[ntvinh986]

Originally Posted by kbob

I'd say more info needed for sure. Sound-what type of services do you have, and are planning on having-contemporary, blended, rock, traditional?

ambient lighting? How many windows/direct sunlight is going to be in the worship center, and how much is going to hit the screen? If you can make both numbers zero, you'll be much better off.

HD or SD-I'd say if starting from scratch design with hd, and use sd until all your graphics and video libraries are up to speed.

floor /stage diagram would help too. I know you may not have all this right now-just let us know what you can and we'll try to help.

Hi all!
I've just visited this forum. Happy to get acquainted with you. Thanks.

[cmchamp]

Welcome aboard.