Described as a 21st century pentecostal church, New Wine Church in Woolwich has carried out a major upgrade to its sound and vision infrastructure. Leicestershire-based Hawthorn Theatrical Ltd were awarded the contract after having impressed with the PA support they provided for the Church’s New Year’s Eve celebrations.

Divided into three spaces, the three-year-old church includes a small downstairs chapel and community area, including creche and catering. However, it was the 1500-seat main room — set within the shell of the Odeonsque art deco church — that Martin Hawthorn’s company was asked to upgrade, in order to provide additional functionality.

For sound reinforcement, they selected exclusively Martin Audio components — and provided a cabling infrastructure for future expansion as well as over 100 ways of audio patching, a 72-channel Allen & Heath (ML5000) desk, fully-specified outboard rack and 18 radio mics to accommodate the large scale band and choir.

The emphasis was on discretion to maintain the look of the listed building, and thus a conventional, eight-box Martin Audio W8C left/right stack is concealed behind perforated video screens as the main PA system.

“Originally we had planned to use flown delays, but when we provided a Martin Audio system for their special New Year event we found it worked a treat without — the W8C projected effortlessly to the back of the church,” said Martin.

For the low frequencies, Hawthorn also specified six Martin Audio WS2A subs — concealed under the stage in two batches of three — while a further two LE400C floor monitors are hidden under grilles in the fore stage.

Additional stage sound is provided in the form of a further four Blackline F12’s (for the choir) and four flown F15’s for the band, with five WM0.5 wedges to infil on the moving band stage truck.

The system is powered by a combination of QSC 2402’s and 3402’s while processing includes a quantity of Sabine Feedback Eliminators and Drawmer 4-channel gates. Mics include Sennheiser drum kit mics, Sony radios, Shure handhelds and the system processing is via XTA. Induction loop amplifiication is also provided for the hard of hearing.

In addition to its live presentations, the New Wine Church operates with a variety of audio and video playback sources, including minidisc and CD, as well as VHS.

Hawthorn also provided the lighting and some of the multimedia, including four projectors — two 7700-lumens Sanyo XF41’s, projecting onto the 4x3m perforated screens and two XP41’s (3,300 lumens) onto rear projection screens.

On the engineering front Hawthorn Theatrical have designed and commissioned a motorised truss, which is flown at front of house with art deco trim to complement the building. Due to a shortage of space two motorised trucks are used to deliver the band and choir on and off the stage, while a curved motorised festoon curtain provides mid drapes, a rear gold foil decorative drape positioned in front of a Starcloth.

Martin Hawthorn believes his company have delivered the ideal solution. “ “I think we have created an impactful environment for conferences and motivational speaking while allowing the church to host major concerts.”