EP02 – Production Touring vs Church Production w/ Andrew Stone

The Production Channel Podcast

In Episode 2, Stephen Bowles of Shoflo and Clem Harrod of CLEMCO.AV interview Andrew Stone on his switch from live production touring to Church Production. He explains that during a tour, you go from city to city giving thousands of people the same experience in different venues. Working in church production, however, you stay in the same venue with the challenge of keeping things fresh on a weekly basis for one congregation. He states, “We do have to figure out how to make the content and the experience of what’s hitting people in the seats be unique and exciting, enough so that they want to come back next week and repeat it. That’s a challenge.”

His new calling came from out of the blue about 12 years ago. Life was about to change for concert touring manager, Andrew Stone. He was suddenly contacted by a music director friend from a church in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Andrew was asked to consult on some ideas they were tossing around to make the church service more inviting, and after listening to their pitch, he ended up being the guy to help make these ideas come to fruition. Andrew realized, “This is a medium that is going to be huge, and these guys are wanting to embrace it and see if it can be a life-changing effort.” In 2005, Andrew Stone became the production manager for Church on the Move, a place of worship where church-goers can attend services and events resembling state-of-the-art live concerts.

At Church on the Move, the production timeline for the week takes on a “Tuesday to Sunday” mentality. The church production team starts planning the creative core of their service on Tuesday, and they are “show ready” by Friday. Saturday is a big day where the church volunteers are incorporated and immersed in the plan for final show execution on Sunday. “We’ve got live feeds going on between campuses, back and forth and open COM channels…all that technology comes into play.” Each campus is fiber connected so sending high quality, HD video and multichannel audio and COM can be easily synched, and all locations can stay in communication. Andrew explains how training crew volunteers opened his eyes to a different type of leadership. Since he came from the rough and tumble life of the concert world, he had to consider the alternative environment and have a more passionate frame of mind leading in the worship realm. “I had to get into a pastoring mindset, not only for myself, but in order to lead my team and to help cultivate them…I needed to relax a little bit. I needed to be a little more sensitive on some subjects.” Not only does Andrew lead a crew, he’s a mentor and a teacher, and he takes that role very seriously.

With an office full of gold records and his fond memories of touring on the road, he simply hopes “The legacy for me, I literally want people to say ‘That guy led us well. That’s it.’” He knows he had great mentors when he started in the concert business, and he says “I owe it to the universe, to God, to whatever, to try and do the same thing to the guys I’m around now.” Andrew tells Stephen and Clem how grateful he is for the opportunity to speak with The Production Channel about his experiences. “My only hope is that somebody listens to this, who this resonates with, because every single day there is something to be learned about how we can do this better and how we can be a bigger part of reaching people and being an example to them.”

Join in the fellowship as Stephen and Clem discuss Andrew’s passion for passing on the weekly word of God to people of all ages in this modern, quick-paced, HD world.