Located in Minneapolis, MN, Substance Church 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.
“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 Adam. “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, Adam 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 48ft wide by 22ft 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 Adam. “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 Adam. “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 Adam. “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, Adam 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 Adam. “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.”
