Outgrowing its former home, De Levende Steen (The Living Stone) Pentecostal ministry built a new €10m facility in Spijkenisse, in the Netherlands. Covering an area of 12,000m², its sanctuary (The Dome) seats 2,000, with a second room holding 450. Central to the technical design is a high-quality audio network – needed to provide sound reinforcement for services and other events, as well as to allow the church to broadcast its Saturday service on Dutch national television and to record it for further use.
‘People come from all over the Netherlands and from Belgium,’ says Technical Manager, Rens van Reenen. ‘The old building was too small to accommodate everyone, so we had no choice but to move to somewhere bigger. But building a new church meant that it could be designed precisely for our needs – including the A/V facilities.’
Architect Han Kluijver designed the new building: ‘It is a different kind of church,’ he says. ‘There is never a moment of silence, there is always laughter, singing and a lot of music. Because of that, I designed it more as a theatre than a church.’
Van Reenen and his three fellow audio technicians were happy with the Yamaha O2R96 mixing console they had in the old building, and greater flexibility and audio quality of the Yamaha CL series led to them specifying a Dante network throughout the building, plus a CL3 console and Rio 3224-D and 1608-D I/O units. All A/V equipment was supplied and installed by Smash Sound, with the Yamaha equipment purchased through dealer, Sales All.
The CL3 occupies a conventional FOH position in the Dome, although it can be moved to any point in the building, thanks to the Dante network. The Rio3224-D is installed in the backstage wireless receiver rack and the Rio1608-D on stage. Meanwhile, the old O2R96 is still in use, fitted with MY16-AUD interface cards, in the church’s mobile video studio.
‘We have used Yamaha equipment for a long time, starting on a very small scale many years ago,’ says van Reenen. ‘We chose Yamaha again because the equipment is pleasant to work with and it has never let us down. We are very impressed with the CL series – with the audio quality, ease of use and the flexibility that the Dante network and extensive onboard processing provide.’
Nominated for the annual Royal Institute of Dutch Architects (BNA) Building of the Year prize, De Levende Steen’s new building will accommodate the church congregation for the forseeable future – and the Dante network will accommodate and new Yamaha equipment it requires.
