A Day at WFX

I spent Thursday at the WFX conference here in Atlanta. If you’re unfamiliar with WFX, it’s basically a tradeshow/conference for church production dorks like myself. There are also some facilities type things for facilities type people who want to talk to chair manufacturers and toilet manufacturers and learn how to keep their carpets cleaner, but the bulk of the show seemed to be for church production dorks.

The keynotes were really good. It was my first time hearing Craig Groeschel from Lifechurch.tv, and he shared the story of his church which was very cool to hear. Andy Stanley came up next and reminded me of how completely and absolutely spoiled I have been to be able to work where I do for the last year from both a production standpoint as well as a purely organizational standpoint. To have been given the opportunity to do what I do on a daily basis in this place is mind boggling to me sometimes.

I wish I could talk about all the cool stuff I saw, but I honestly didn’t see much. I spent most of the day talking to people I only see at shows like this and putting faces to emails and phone conversations. If Friday wasn’t my day with my son, I would go back to maybe actually see some stuff because I’m sure there were some cool things I missed.

Something I did see was made by a company called Corevalus called Same Page. It was a cool networked digital music stand. We liked it because it meant we wouldn’t have to clean up any more sheet music after rehearsal. For the most part it’s probably not something we would really get a lot out of since we have no music stands on Sunday. But for my last church where everyone is reading charts, this thing looked like it would rock.

I also finally got to see the Midas XL8 in person. It definitely has some cool features, but I wasn’t thrilled with the console interface. The EQ controls alone are a deal breaker for me. You have one set of controls for every band of EQ so you have to cycle through the EQ bands to make an adjustment. I’m sure I could get used to it, but how many times am I going to grab the wrong band at an inopportune time before I get used to it? There are so many other great digital desks out there where it’s not a pain to EQ something so I have no gear lust for the XL8 at all. But the monitors are pretty as long as you never need to sit down to mix.

One more thing I got to check out was the LS9 in the Yamaha booth. It was a cool little digital console. I think if you’re budget is tight and you really really want to go digital, but just can’t quite get into an M7CL, that LS9 might be worth looking at. I was talking to Adam Duncan who handles FOH for Lincoln Brewster not too long ago, and he mentioned he was carrying an LS9 on the road and has had great results with it. I thought it was cute, but it is one of many digital consoles I would gladly take over an XL8…can you tell I was disappointed…but I digress…

I think this was only the 2nd or 3rd WFX show, so it’s an interesting trade show. If you don’t have an opportunity to hit a lot of tradeshows and are looking for a more church focused one, WFX might be worth putting on your calendar.