Located in Minneapolis, MN, Substance Church (substancechurch.com) is a dynamic multi-site church that
believes in doing things a bit differently by pushing the limits of the
congregation’s expectations to build a stronger community. In holding true to
their foundation, they recently underwent a LED video installation at their
Northtown Campus with one of the largest LED video walls in any house of
worship known today. Led by Adam Frey, Technical Director for Substance, the
church wanted to complete their full production design with a high-resolution
and virtually flicker-free LED video solution, so they chose FLEXTour LED video
from PixelFLEX, installed by REACH Communications, Inc. (reachcomm.net) of Champlin, MN.
“The project on a whole was a new lighting, projection
and LED video installation for our auditorium that was built about a year ago,
and this was the final piece of the design for the new space,” began Frey.
“Ideally, we wanted an LED wall that could be easily reconfigured for future
designs, and we also needed the most flicker-free performance with a high Hertz
rate for our live streaming video. We looked at a number of different LED video
manufacturers, but when spoke with PixelFLEX they were able to both work within
our budget and provide us with the exact type of LED video wall we needed to
complete our new worship environment.”
Getting the project underway, Frey began looking at the
different LED video manufacturers and their product lines available. Working
with integration partner REACH Communications, Frey soon began researching the
award-winning line of PixelFLEX LED video technologies and subsequently made the
decision to install the FLEXTour video wall.
“Our stage proscenium opening is 48’ wide by 22’ tall,
and the final LED video wall ended up being 47.5’ wide by 11.5’ tall with the
ability to move up and down as needed,” continued Frey. “Once we decided upon
the FLEXTour, we only had about two weeks to complete the project so we worked
with REACH Communications to help us complete the installation. Once we had the
product on site, everything went exactly as we thought it would and REACH
Communications really did a great job.”
As part of
integrating the FLEXTour video wall solution, and contributing to the overall
flexibility of the system, REACH Communications supplied the motors, motor
control panel, box truss and rigging elements of the project. This adds the capability of raising and
lowering the video wall, which is an important feature for Substance Church.
With the LED video installation now complete, it was time
for the FLEXTour to show the design team and the church leadership just what a
difference it could make. Knowing the capabilities of the product line, Frey
was confident it would be met with excitement from all.
“I was excited for everyone to see the FLEXTour in use
and when we turned it on, everyone was very impressed with the brightness and
high-definition quality of the LED video wall,” explained Frey. “With our live
streaming video, we can get down to about a 4-foot square on the LED video wall
before we see any pixelation, which is a great zoom distance from where the
cameras are positioned, and it looks great on camera.”
Now ready to be shown the full congregation, the FLEXTour
LED video wall made its debut at Substance Church during their annual Christmas
services. As Christmas is the highest attendances time of the year, Frey
was ready to debut the completed production design with the added dimension of
creativity provided by the FLEXTour LED technology.
\”The first time we used the new LED video wall was
on our Christmas service and everyone was amazed at how much it transformed our
worship environment,” admitted Frey. “It added a completely new layer to the
service making it much more visually engaging through the use of the most
current LED video technology.\”
Looking back on the design process, Frey is not only complementary
of the FLEXTour, but also all the PixelFLEX LED video solutions. After looking
at the myriad of options available, he found a few advantages to working with
PixelFLEX that can make a successful LED video design possible for other
worship environments as well.
“The biggest advantage to working with PixelFLEX is the
breadth and flexibility of the product lines they are creating,” concluded
Frey. “They are not content to use the same technology over-and-over, but are
instead continuing to develop and evolve their products for the betterment of
any LED video installation with the best pricing to match.”
