Cross and Fabric

Tanner Lambert from First Baptist Church at The Villages in The Villages, FL brings us this fabric-filled stage design.

From Tanner: I came on staff here at FBCATV back in August of 2016. A vision we had was to enhance our times of worship through lighting and visuals. We have a huge, 51′ long and about 20′ high, back wall behind our choir and it was very bare. I took some measurements, along with the help of our maintenance tech, and we figured we could do something with it.

In the past they have hung things on it for performances during peak times of year, but nothing year round. After Christmas we looked at doing something different and keeping up with our designs for different sermon series. When I design, I design so we are adding to what we currently have on the stage so we do not have to have a HUGE work day or week to get what we need done. Sometimes adding here and there can make all the different in the world.

This design started in January with the white curtains being hung across the back wall. These are 10′ wide, 18′ long white voile fabric that I got from ROSEBRAND. A company that specializes in stage fabrics. I got 110 yards of fabric. Had it made into 10′ wide curtains that we would hang off of 10′ long PVC pipe that we attached with zip ties to a wire we have hanging from side to side into the metal studs of the structure. Each 10′ PVC pipe had two sections of curtain on it. So, one PVC pipe had two 10′ wide, 18′ Long pieces of fabric on it. Each with one closed end so when you pull the fabric it does not come off the end of the PVC pipe.

In March we added the Crosses which were made of 2×4’s and paneling. The 2×4 made the cross then the paneling was added to the sides to make it match the cross we have currently hanging in the sanctuary. They were stained to match the cross in the middle. The crosses were attached to the choir riser by building a base that screwed to the riser then the 2×4 slid down into this base and was attached with bolts.

Then we hung the purple and black Poly Silk fabric (100 Yards Each). I got this fabric from the same company. We took the fabric had it made into 5′ wide pieces and they were about 30′ long. We took three pieces of fabric, pulled it onto a 10 foot piece of metal conduit zip tied the fabric so it would not move to the conduit and zip tied the conduit to the existing PVC pipe and Wire that was hanging. After we got it hung over top of the white fabric we pulled the white fabric through the cracks of the black fabric and took bull clips, attached it to the fabric, and draped the fabric to our liking to the back of the cross on screws. We took bull clips to the edges of where the fabric was being pulled through and attached them so you would not see the wall behind the fabric. We also took remaining fabric and dressed our cross that is up year round. On Easter Sunday this fabric will change from black to purple.

For this stage design to be pulled off it was about a $2,500 – $3,000 dollar design that took us about 4 months to complete. After Easter this design will come down and we will have a blank wall again for a few months.