Taking it to the streets...

[PatrickH]

Hey everyone,

My name is Patrick - I'm completely new to the forum here, but very excited to find it.

I've got a few questions, and I'm wondering if any of you have any knowledge/ experience doing this sort of thing...

Over the last few years, it seems God has been stirring quite a bit in the hearts of those in the worship teams at my church. For quite some time, many of us have felt a "need" or conviction to start to move the ministry of our music beyond the confines of our church walls. In the past year, we have been blessed with opportunities to start doing that, leading worship as an opening for some rather large events and speakers. Each time, the response has been overwhelming.

Anyway, to make a long story short, there has become a push for our groups to take things one step further, and to do something even bigger... There is talk of holding a big, out door worship service in the huge local city park. Things seem to be falling in to place already, as funding has almost miraculously shown up without even making known any need - but now this can easily be free to anyone who might wander by. The bass player in one of our groups is best friends with the owner of the biggest audio production company in the city too, and he's offered to do sound for us and provide the needed equipment... It feels like God is leading us down this path, for whatever reason...

But none of us have ever done anything like this, so quite honestly, we don't entirely know what we are doing...

So my questions come from this. If anyone has knowledge in these areas, it'd be great to hear:

One of the first things we are wondering about is how to project the words in a large venue like this. It's going to be day light (an evening in the summer, with the sun in the west, with the seating facing westward).

Our other question is if people know about any copyright details that need to be figured out for live performance/ projecting words.

Finally, how do you promote something like this? We are a non profit group, from a church that is often struggling to make ends meet, and without much financial backing. We have far more time/energy than we have money, but we want to make sure people know about this and that people might come in great numbers.

Any other suggestions, comments, etc, could be helpful too.

Thanks in advance!

Patrick

[stephen]

Number one, Welcome to the GPAWF!!

Second, I would urge, GO FOR IT! But, there are other things, like permits, and if the city thinks it might be a lrge affair, they may want you to pay for extra police, and traffic etc., so the first stop would be City Hall.

I'm not an expert on the ASCAP/BMI stuff (copyright), so someone else would have to let you know.

[Teleguy]

I've been part of numerous outdoor concerts like that.
The legalities are easy as using CCLI.
I'd pass around lyric sheets, and use familiar choruses. Lots of Christians will show up.
The best ones I've been involved with always gave away a lot of food and clothing to the homeless street people. That draws them in, but don't step on their pride. Lotsa "we" statements are better'n "you" statements, if ya know what I mean?

[Crunchyriff]

I'm not an expert on the ASCAP/BMI stuff (copyright), so someone else would have to let you know.

AFAIK, as long as this is a not-for-profit event this should NOT be an issue.

You start charging anykind of fee, and everything changes.

[PatrickH]

AFAIK, as long as this is a not-for-profit event this should NOT be an issue.

That's good to know. Our plan is to make this entirely free, though we may (Still discussing) have a free-will offering, or donations table of some sort set up to help any possible funding shortcomings we might have... Certainly, not -for-profit though.

[reverbbb]

Copyright (not dependent of profit or non-profit):

CCLI should be considered. CCLI manages the royalties and copyright issues of a majority of Christian music material. This includes hand-outs, overhead projections and sharing (copying) among eahch other. CCLI should be considered even within your own congregration. The fee is nearly negligible. The potential for hassles for not obtaining copyright permissions is very low. However, I have heard of some cases where even small churches were approached for sizeable fees/fines (what ever you want to call it), for not obtaining permission to project and print out song lyrics.

This has become a very big issue in the past few years. It is simpler to avoid the hassles and joining the CCLI.

With that said, the main requirement that you need to fulfill with CCLI, is that you display your CCLI number promenantly on the material (usually at the end of a song). Also, they require that you display the songwriter's name near the title of the song. CCLI publishes a list of all of their songwriting members and their songs in a searchable database, so it is not difficult to to obtain the information.

There are also a great number of songs that are not covered by CCLI. In theory (by definition of US laws), you are supposed to obtain the permission in writing from each artist (publishing company) that you want to display the words. This is not easy. But the upside is, that CCLI has so many listed songs, that there is no shortage of material. But you might find a certain song that you insist on displaying, is not listed with CCLI.

Now if you are to simply perform the songs, then you are not violating any copyright laws. This might be a consideration, given that your "on the street" flock is likely to have never heard any of the songs that your are presenting. You wouldn't get them to sing along if you forced them. That is, until you have exposed the same folks multiple times to these songs.

But in the "take it to the streets" train of thought, you are probably attempting to minister to the unchurched. The wow factor of an overhead might impress them, but they are most likely are not going to have heard of these songs.

Overhead DLP projectors are expensive. For outdoors, you are going to need a very powerful lumens projector for two reasons 1) overcoming the ambient light of outdoors 2) the larger the screen, the more spread out the light intensity. I would suggest renting the appropriate DLP since that outdoor grade will be extremely expensive. Just the lamp for an indoor DLP is $500 in some cases.

As far as promotion:

Since you are on a tight budget, consider getting the youth of your church involved on a) knocking on doors at apartments, b) handing out flyers at other events (sometimes event sponsors are real receptive to allowing promotions of good causes as a public relations consideration), c) hand out material at general gathering places of the unchurched.

You have to be careful of how to implement my suggestions due to the potential for troublemakers to taunt or hassle your youth. I would suggest that none of these youth be allowed to attempt these techniques in anything less than 4 in a group AND mature supervision.

Sometimes, you can get a local grocery store or food resturant to allow you to hang posters or flyers. Even some radio stations will do public service announcements. The newspapers generally will have a limited amount of public announcement area or an assigned editor for those type of stories (unfortunately, often they are after the event instead of before).


~~~~~~~~~

Just some ideas and brainstorming. I hope this helps.

[Crunchyriff]

CCLI is something that has really been pushed to the forefront in the last few years (since I stepped out of the biz); and fwiw, I condsider it one of those "ugly little details" whose adjectives I have for them cannot be printed on this BBS or spoken aloud in good conscience. :innocent

needless to say, I have heard of some of the CCLI enforecement/strongarm tactics being used today within the context of church worship itself and it makes me sick...

[PatrickH]

Reverbbb - thanks for your insight.

Our church already has a CCLI lisence of it's own, but as I understand it, this, being an event outside the church, would require it's own special "event" lisence... right?

even if that's not the case, we'd probably still need to pay a bit, since our current lisence is likely for less people than an event like this will hopefully attract.

I personally think things like CCLI/ascap are very valid, legitimate things - and if I were a musician/composer trying to make a living I'd defend it pretty strongly. For this, I just want to make sure I'm going to the right people for permission.

About the projector:

Our hope is to minister to both churched and unchurched people through this. To share the joy we have from lives transformed by the living Christ. The songs we sing hopefully reflect that, and in that, the words are critical to us. Whether people know the songs or not, hopefully some of these words can minister to them. Our focus is not to be on ourselves, but on Christ, and sharing him through song. Some people are auditory learners, others visual, so it would be great to be able to present the words in some format as simply another front to minister to people. Right now we are laying the ground work planning and taking a step of faith. If God wants us to be able to have these things, he shall provide the means.

Thanks for the recommendations on projectors. We'll have to look into the projectors. Several people in our congregation our projectors for business uses, but I imagine we'll need something stronger as you suggested... The area we are going to be is partially covered (it's a big tented auditorium with a seating capacity of 4000) from above, but the front/back/and sides are open. If we are lucky, then hopefully that will allow for a bit of shade to make projecting a little easier.

Thank you all again.

[Crunchyriff]

I personally think things like CCLI/ascap are very valid, legitimate things - and if I were a musician/composer trying to make a living I'd defend it pretty strongly. For this, I just want to make sure I'm going to the right people for permission.


I whole-heartedly agree.
That being said, I personally have a problem with profiting of the P&W of a church in general. It's one of those little "devil is in the details" of the biz things that I find unpleasant.

OTOH, If people are 'making a profit' off my material, and I'm not being properly compensated for my work; THAT is a whole 'nother thing entirely, and my attorneys would be dispatched immediately.

[beatlenut]

We would love to do this too, but wow it must be a logistical nightmare!

We are having our 2nd annual "indoor" concert in a couple of weeks. Last year it went REAL well. I can only hope and pray it reaches out to the community better though this year.