Stage Designs

Throwback: Towers and Diagonals

Ben Murray from Piedmont Church in Macon, GA brings us these towers and lattice panels. (Originally posted August 2013)

They’re a portable church that meets at a school each week, so they’re limited in resources.

They took five 4×8 sheets of heavy duty insulated foam board ($10/sheet) and painted them with the diamond design using dark red and dark yellow paint. They hung the boards from chain and put a truss in the middle of each of the slots, thus taking about 5 feet off the back of the stage. The trusses were covered with dollar store white plastic table cloth, just stretched over the truss and attached using gaffers tape. Each truss tower was up-lit by an LED slim Par56. In front of the wall they built, there were 4 Q-wash mover lights.

Cost: around $150 (not including lights, they had those)

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10 responses to “Throwback: Towers and Diagonals”

  1. Melissa says:

    This looks fantastic! I built cubes 2′ x 2′ x 2′ out of wood 1×2’s and I am looking for fabric to cover them so I can stack them different ways and light them up to create different effects. I see here that you used DOLLAR STORE TABLECLOTHS. I wouldn’t think to do that since they could melt with the lights. You didn’t have that problem?

  2. L Reed says:

    This is another brilliant idea, that works well on so many levels! Love the repetition, the diagonal patterning, and how it plays with light and reads like texture. Very well executed and what a bonus that its inexpensive!!!

  3. Ben Murray says:

    We didn’t have any issues with melting the table cloths because of the LED lights. The only issue is that the table cloth is easily torn. We have to move everything off stage each week, but if you are carful, you won’t have a problem!

  4. Brian says:

    We love this idea. Do you have an itemized cost? Also, where do you store these? In a trailer, at the school? Thanks

  5. Ben Murray says:

    also, the truss were wrapped in dollar store white table cloth. We had 6 truss wrapped, so $6 for the plastic table cloth.

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