Pallet Canvas

Jordan Christie from Hillcrest Baptist Church Spanish Trail Campus in Pensacola, FL brings us this cool pallet design that becomes versatile with the way they change out the lighting above.

From Jordan: This winter we wanted a very simple and warm stage design using wood and Edison bulbs. We are using this design from November through February. So we rolled it out in 3 phases. During November we had just the pallet wall and piano on stage. In December we added the star shaped paper lanterns to give the stage a more Christmas / Winter vibe. Then in January we removed the paper lanterns and put the Edison bulbs in their place. This was a relatively cheap and easy design. It is also easily scaled to any size stage.

Using 2x4s, recycled from previous stage designs, we built a frame that was 10 feet tall and roughly 30 feet wide. Next we collected 40 pallets from Lowes and had a team of college students cut them apart to salvage the planks. Then using a nail gun we tacked all the planks to the frame using small brads. In total the collection, deconstruction of the pallets and building the wall took 4 hours with 10 people.

Then we built a 22 foot wide x 8 foot deep frame that we would hang the Edison bulbs from using dark gray PVC pipe and fittings. This frame just rests on our lighting truss. We lost count of how many wire splices and wire nuts we used doing this but it was in the ballpark of 1 million. Wiring the bulbs and 22 sockets through the frame took roughly 12 hours by myself. The bulbs were hung at various heights and depths. We also wired the bulbs into an existing dimmer circuit so we would have control over their brightness. In December we used small 5watt night light bulbs to illuminate the star lanterns. In January we simply removed the lanterns and replaced the bulbs with various shaped and size Edison Bulbs.

Here is a video from our Night of Worship a few weeks back using this stage design.

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Materials Used…
2x4s – FREE
40 pallets – FREE
22 Star shaped Paper Lanterns – $225
22 Edison Bulbs, sockets & electrical wire- $300
PVC pipe and fittings – $200
TOTAL COST – $725
TOTAL TIME – 16 hours.