ADJ Focus Profile & Vizi Beam 12RX Automated Luminaires Transform Historic Church into State-of-the Art Dance Temple

Grote Kerk (Big Church) in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands was the unlikely venue for two recent dance parties hosted by ABNØRMAAL Events. The team from production company RJ Showequipment overcame significant challenges – including complex logistics and a tight budget – to deliver impressive production for the event. Utilizing ADJ’s powerful and feature-packed Focus Profile and Vizi Beam 12RX moving heads, they created a high-tech dance club atmosphere while simultaneously using lighting to highlight the ornate décor of the historic venue.

One of the most significant examples of neo-Renaissance church architecture in the Netherlands, Apeldoorn’s Grote Kerk was constructed in the late 1800s. It remains a place of Christian worship but is also used to host concerts and other cultural events open to the public. Electronic Music promoter ABNØRMAAL Events was the first organization to use the venue for a dance event when they hosted their inaugural ‘In De Kerk’ party last year. This proved such a success that this year’s installment was expanded to two nights, featuring house and hard house on Friday, followed by techno and hard techno on Saturday, both attracting capacity crowds. The responsibility for transforming this iconic building into a modern nightclub environment – including video projection, audio, special effects and lighting – fell to local production company RJ Showequipment, whose team deployed a number of ADJ fixtures from their rental inventory.

“Our biggest challenge on this project was that – because of the nature of the building – we couldn’t hang anything from the ceiling,” explains Robin Johannesma, owner of RJ Showequipment and Production Manager for the event. “Therefore, we designed a rig that was fully ground stacked, using a central circular truss cage and two freestanding truss towers to rig our moving heads. We utilized two ADJ fixtures, which are staples of our rental inventory, the Vizi Beam 12RX and Focus Profile, which is the largest moving head we have in stock. It’s a really powerful and versatile fixture that we love to work with. Especially for this kind of event – in a venue with such a large, high ceiling – it can zoom out really wide and still generate crisp GOBO projections. We also utilized its framing shutters to highlight the church’s grand pipe organ at certain moments, which was very effective.”

The brightest and most feature-rich Focus Series fixture to date, the Focus Profile is a professional caliber automated profile luminaire. It features a potent 400W LED engine, with a native color temperature of 6,700K and a CRI >70, coupled with an exhaustive collection of beam-shaping tools. These include four, independently controllable, rotating framing shutter blades, which can be used to precisely shape the light output. The unit offers full CMY color mixing together with variable CTO color temperature control (2700K to 6700K) and an additional color wheel loaded with six dichroic filters comprised of four primaries together with CTB and CRI filters. Two separate GOBO wheels feature seven replaceable, indexed-rotating GOBOs, and eight static GOBOs, respectively, while two rotating prisms (3-facet and 4-facet) allow for the creation of a wide variety of aerial effects. Motorized focus, iris and zoom (7 – 45°) together with a replaceable (medium) frost filter and an animation wheel complete the lineup of features offered by this powerful and versatile luminaire.

“With the Focus Profile we were able to project wide GOBO patterns to fill the whole ceiling but we could also zoom them into a very narrow beam, creating a pin spot effect to hit the mirror ball,” adds Rik Keja, RJ Showequipment’s in-house Lighting Designer. “We used them a lot for the breakdowns to create atmospheric static looks as well as for dynamic moving effects, flying beams in, out and around the dancefloor. The GOBOs are great on the unit and suitable for both aerials and projection, which gives lots of flexibility.”

The other model of moving head utilized for the event was ADJ’s popular Vizi Beam 12RX. Eight of these units were deployed in sets of four at the top of the truss towers which flanked the DJ position. Powered by the brilliant 260W Philips® Platinum 12R LL MSD discharge lamp, these dedicated beam luminaires each produce a razor sharp 2-degree beam. They offer a variety of useful beam-shaping tools including 14 colors + open, 16 GOBOs + open (including UV, CTO & CTB), two rotating prisms (6-facet linear & 24-facet circular) and a frost filter for wash effects.

“The Vizi Beam 12RX is extremely fast and has a narrow beam, which makes it a high impact unit,” comments Rik. “I used it to shoot beams right from the front to the back of the church, creating impressive aerial effects, as well as to provide another source for hitting the mirror ball. Its two prism options and motorized focus made for some very cool effects, which the pictures from the event capture. It is the perfect partner to the Focus Profile, because the two fixtures complement each other very well. The 12RX is fast – in terms of movement, but also color changes and pretty much every feature – so I used it to keep up with fast beats. Then for the slower sections, and breakdowns, the Profile came into play, for the more scenic looks and slower sweeping effects.”

In addition to the moving heads, RJ Showequipment utilized a pair of ADJ’s compact yet powerful 7P HEX IP LED par fixtures to illuminate the ornate table at the front of the church which served as a DJ booth. Two more of the fixtures were also used outside the church to light a food court area. Finally, a pair of ADJ’s LED-illuminated Fog Fury Jett Pro fog machines were mounted between the moving heads on the truss towers, pointing out towards the dancefloor. These generated impressive CO2-style plumes of smoke shooting into the crowd, which when dissipated filled the cavernous space with a beam-enhancing haze.

“The other challenge we faced was the budget,” concludes Robin. “Although the church is huge, it has lots of fixed bench seating, so the area available for dancing is limited, which reduced the event’s capacity and in turn the budget. We had to be strategic with our fixture selection as we couldn’t use the quantity of lights we’d normally want to in such a large space. It could be argued that we should have chosen a cheaper spot, and used more of them, but the Focus Profile is so bright, and has such a wide beam angle, we were able to cover the whole ceiling using just eight fixtures. We wouldn’t have been able to do that with even twice the quantity of smaller spot fixtures. The combination of just eight Focus Profiles and eight Vizi Beam 12RXs – used creatively – was enough to fill the space with a variety of impressive effects.”

Through strategic fixture selection and creative lighting design, RJ Showequipment successfully transformed this iconic landmark into a dynamic and immersive dance venue. By leveraging the advanced capabilities of ADJ’s Focus Profile and Vizi Beam 12RX luminaires, the team delivered a visually stunning experience that respected the venue’s historic architecture while embracing the energy and spectacle of modern electronic music. The result was a unique fusion of old and new – a testament to the power of thoughtful production design and the versatility of ADJ lighting solutions.

Event
ABNØRMAAL: In De Kerk
www.abnormaal-events.nl

Venue
Grote Kerk
Apeldoorn, the Netherlands

Production Manager
Robin Johannesma

Lighting Designer
Rik Keja

Rental Company
RJ Showequipment
www.rjmusic.nl

ADJ Gear List
8 x Focus Profile
8 x Vizi Beam 12RX
4 x Fog Fury Jett Pro
4 x 7P HEX IP