The Girls of Grace

Promise Keepers, Women of Faith, and Family Life Marriage Seminars: All of these events are familiar names on the inspirational conference circuit. But as great as these events are, their primary focus or target audience is not the "teenage girl". That's were the veteren Contemporary Chrisitan Musical Group "Point of Grace" enter's the picture. With Twenty-Four Number #1 songs on the christian music charts, these four dynamic girls noticed the lack of materials and events in the marketplace that were targeted at teenage girls. So they decided to do something about it, and thus the event "Girls of Grace" was born.

Having just finished it's second season, this two-day conference for teenage girls has been a tremendous success. Hosted in churches across the nation, the average event size is about 3,000 young women in each city. The conference features motivational speakers like Suzie Shallenberger, the editor of Focus on the Family's "Brio" magazine and Nancy Alcorn, who is the director of Mercy Ministries, a non-profit facility dedicated to helping girls in trouble. Each of the girls in Point of Grace also gives a presentation on a topic area as well.

For the Fall 2003 Tour, Production Manager Daniel Connell of Illiumiart Productions contracted Sargent Solutions to provide FOH (Front of House) and monitor engineers for the events. The sound equipment was provided by Spectrum Sound, of Nashville, TN. The goals of this event is similar to most corporate events: The mics have to work, and the speech has to be heard. The videos have to roll on time, and the event should be smooth and professionally operated. An added twist, is that Point of Grace performs a concert on the Friday night of the event, so the engineers also have to be able to meet their high standards for what their vocal blend should sound like.

One of the biggest challenges on an event like this, is that in many cases, the church's speakers are the primary speakers usedfor the event. Girls of Grace brings all of the stage inputs, monitors, microphones and consoles, but then it is up to the FOH engineer to successfully utilize the Church's house sound to do the event. While many of the larger (1000+ seat) churches in the country have sound systems that are more capable than ever, not all of them are designed to provide concert sound levels to 3000 screaming young ladies. By utilizing the latest measurement and adjustment technologies like SIA Smaart Live and Yamaha's PM1D Digital Mixing Console, Sargent Solutions is able to analyze the local church's sound system, check it for problems, and adjust it to give the desired performance.

Ask SS what the neatest thing about the Girls of Grace event is? We'll tell you that it is not the technologies used to give the presentation, but being a part of an event that has a positive impact on the lives of teenage girls across the United States. That kind of impact is what Sargent Solutions is all about: Making a difference in people's lives, through technically excellent presentations.