Stage Designs

Throwback: Spandex Squares

Steven Hall from Northland Church in Longwood, Florida brings us these great spandex squares and some pretty tasty lighting as well. (Originally posted March 2012)

To create the frames for the boxes, they bought outdoor deck hand rail spindles. They are 3′ long and have a 45 deg. angle cut already. This makes it super easy to make them the same (no cutting involved).

They put 1 screw through the ends of each spindle to hold the pieces together (in a square). They found it was best to pre-drill all the holes – to keep the wood from splitting. They also pre-drilled the eye hook holes.

Next, they attached a piece of spandex to the frame by stapling it across the back.

Then they added their eye hooks and hung each piece off some extra chain link they had.

They found that front lighting it worked wonderfully. They’ve had the panels for almost 2 years now, and all but one has survived (the prototype). It cost them about $350 for the set.

You can find more detailed instructions on how they built these on our Steven’s blog.

Cyc Livestream Simple Hex

15 responses to “Throwback: Spandex Squares”

  1. Jake says:

    The lighting makes this design! Nice work. If this doesn’t make top 10 in March I’ll be shocked. Did you have rear projectors create the different textures on the spandex? I’m so impressed.

    • Steven Hall says:

      Jake,

      Thanks for your kind words. The texture on the panels was created with 2 Mac 2000’s. However, you could easily project onto the panels and give the illusion of video panels if wanted.

      ,Steven

  2. Mike Fowler says:

    Love this design! Probably one of my favorites on the site right now! Where did you get the actually squares made and how much do they cost to get made? I want to try something like this for my Youth Group

  3. I noticed that these are LED lit from behind. Will this also works well if lit from underneath. We do not have the luxury of being able to place the shapes out off our back wall. We want to mount our shapes to the wall and shoot LED colorbars straight up at them. Will this work?

    Thanks,
    David

  4. Steven Hall says:

    Mike, We made them ourselves. It cost us about $350. You could probably get them made at a scenic shop. Not sure how much they would cost though.

    David, We lit these from the front (underneath about 1 foot out) and it looked great.

  5. Was wondering about your vertical support bars. What kind of support did you attach these panels to? How did you secure the supports at the top and bottom? Thanks.

    Russ

  6. Steven Hall says:

    Russ,

    We hung all the panels from our Upstage truss. We used Silver Chain and quick links to keep the distance the same.

  7. Never mind. Just saw the part about hanging these with chain. Thanks.

  8. cindy dellinger says:

    We r currently working on this project at my church. We could use some help with where to purchase the lighting and how to set the lights up. Please help us out :)
    Cindy dellinger

  9. Steven Hall says:

    Cindy,

    Feel free to call me at any time. I would love to help.

    Steven
    618-267-5528

  10. Hey Steve:

    Our church is in desperate need of stage make over. I was wondering if you could help us or we could contract you to do. Our church is in Orlando. Please advise. The stage looks awesome and I have visited Northland before.

    David Jacques

  11. Laura says:

    Hey Steve,

    I really like your idea of the squares. My Design Team for our church are looking to use your idea for our Church Celebration. But we are very limited to how to hang those squares. We are not to use the ceil truss, or damage the walls. We are stumped and have no idea how to suspend this . Might you have any idea?

    Laura

  12. Laura says:

    Hey Steve,

    I forgot to post the comment with a notification of follow-up by email. If you have any solutions to the above problem. Please let me know thank you again

    Laura

Leave a Reply to Steven Hall Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.