This stage design is very simple. We used Styrofoam plates to create a dot pattern on the back wall. Each plate had holes punched in the top, bottom and sides. We then ran heavy fishing string through and suspended them from dowel rods attached to the top of the curtain. The string running side to side just keeps them from twisting and turning. The lights from the bottom catch on the different angles of the plates to create a nice lighting effect.
This year’s Christmas stage design features columns and Christmas lights. The columns are alternating white polyester/spandex and metal window screen rolls. As we’ve shown before we use dowel rods to attach the fabric and screen columns to, and attach them to ropes thrown over the top bar. We took that same idea and strung the christmas lights over a bar and pulled them up behind the fabric. Then we put our LED light bars at the bottom of each column.
The different textures and the lights give us countless possibilities to change the background just by changing the lights. We used blue for this set, but can turn it green for a Christmas tree or alternate colors for other cool combinations.
Check out more photos of this stage design
For a long time the most looked at post on Fork In the Road Music was 50 Free Worship backgrounds, a collection of photos that could be used as a base to create worship and screen backgrounds.
As I was looking through my stats though I noticed that a new post has taken over. Simple Worship Stage Designs is now the top post on my site. I guess some of you are looking for simple ideas to decorate your worship space, so to help you out, here is a list of all the worship design posts I have.
Here is a simple way to make an interesting background for your worship stage.
The cross is made out of 2 ft sections of PVC pipe using corner and middle connectors. We hung it from the top using two ropes over the top of the short curtain bar.
The large diamonds are four foot PVC pipe sections with corner connectors. Fabric clips hold a spandex type material in place to create the “screen”.
The smaller diamonds are two foot sections of PVC pipe with corner connectors. All are suspended by a rope over our back curtain bar.
Each diamond and the cross then has an LED bar light lighting from below.
All in all I think we spent somewhere around $50-$60 for everything, not including the lights of course. We still have tons of pipe left over that we haven’t used yet. Oh, and we fit the pipe together, but didn’t glue it. This way we can pull it apart and reconfigure it as needed in the future. If you need a more secure fit, try some white electrical tape to help hold it in place.
This design was made using simple, easily available items. What simple items have you used to make a stage design? I’d love to see your stage design.. send me a link in the comments. Or find me at twitter.com/rgmmusic or Facebook.com/russellmartinmusic
For Easter we did a real simple stage design, yet one that had a great effect.
To start off we used four of our white satin panels and hung them in the middle of the stage side by side.
Then we used two pieces of screen, which had been crumpled up, and placed those on either side. Led bar lights were placed at the bottom of the panels and under each piece of screen. We put our wooden cross in front and draped it with white cloth.
Looking at it without the lights on, it really wasn’t much to look at. But we set the light colors to represent a sunrise, with gold and orange at the bottom, getting lighter as they went up. We then took a projector and placed it on the floor. We projected the words “He is Risen” in white letters at the top of the cross.
If you liked this post, check out other ideas in the Stage Design Category here on Fork In the Road Music
Also check out these other sites with great stage design ideas:
This set design is a lot more simple than our last one. Our church follows the lectionary and seasons of the church. The color right now is green, so we though it would be nice to create a design that used that color.
1. We started by running up green panels of fabric. We buy these in bolts, and cut them in various lengths. Mostly 15-18 feet.
The panels of fabric have a sleeve sewn at one end. We slip a dowel rod into the sleeve.
The dowel rod has eye hooks in the end. We attach those to ropes with hooks on the end. Toss them over a bar in the ceiling and raise them up.
Since it was Communion this week, we used our beautiful hand made communion banner. Next week we will replace it with a wooden cross.
We used some fabric clamps with rings, and made one panel of the green on each side drape across.
Finally we added our LED Bar lights at the bottom and everything was ready to go.
The final production.
In my first Simple Worship Stage Ideas post I shared a stage design based on water and sails. Here is another idea that we did for our Christmas set. This idea is based on the design Starry Night from churchstagedesignideas.com. Having a much smaller stage we had to adapt the idea.. but I think it worked well. Click here to see all of the photos.
The first element to put together were the windows. These were some we had from a previous set. They made from some thin wood and they have wax paper covering the windows. We are planning on recovering the windows with thin quilting backing, or fabric interfacing, so they are less likely to tear, yet still let the lights come through.
Here my wife is attaching the paper…
We then hung 6 3 foot wide panels of white poly satin.
They have sleeve sewn into the top. We took some dowel rods and put eye hooks on either end. We also created cords with small clasps on the end.
We throw the cord over the top bar of the stage using the beanbag, slip the dowel through the sleeve in the satin, hook the cords to the eye hooks on the end and pull them to the top.
Finally we tie them off to some created weights on the other side of the stage.
Next we put one set of our LED bar lights shining onto the back panels…
We attached the lights to the back of the windows and hung them in place.
The large one in the middle is about 4 feet from the background, the smaller two are about 6 inches in front of that. This added just a little more depth…
At this point we thought we were finished, but it just didn’t look right. The light from the christmas lights was reflecting too much off of the white panels in the back. The choice was to either change the panels to blue, but that meant taking them all down and redoing them.
So we just decided to make them look like pulled curtains, revealing the black curtain in the back. Here was the final result.
Also looked cool without any of the stage lights, just the christmas lights….
The nice thing about the whole set is that we only had to purchase the lights. We have the cloth panels in many different colors, and the windows were from a previous set so we got a great set for little cost.
You may think that designing the background for your worship stage, platform, or venue takes a lot of know how, and a lot of money. Over the past few years we have found neither of those things to be true. We have found that by shopping and finding some material on sale or for free, creating some of our own weights and ties, and through lots of experimenting, we could come up with some cool, meaningful designs for our worship area.
Here are some photos from the most recent set that my wife put together.
The fabric draping down from the right corner is a heavy, elastic fabric which is held up by cafe clips and nylon rope. At each point there is a black rope going over the top and tied to a weight on the back.
The two pieces of fabric in the front are a spandex type fabric which we found on sale. We tied each corner again using cafe clips, a weight and nylon rope, or heavy fishing line.
We finished it off by placing the lights to where they hit the fabric in different ways.
The most expensive part of course is the colored lights, but a nice effect can be obtained with out them by using some regular spots, or lights.
Our goal is to keep experimenting and trying new things. As we do I’ll try to share what we learn with you.
In the mean time here are some great sites that I have used to find ideas, from people who have been doing this much longer, and are far better than I am. Enjoy.
Flickr Creative Elements Design Warehouse
What sites do you use to get ideas?
Do you design your stage? Send a link and share your ideas!
