Flexible LED Video Wall Delivers Impact and Design Versatility to the Worship Experience
Crossland Community Church, based in Kentucky, offers a community of refuge and hope for all people and a "come as you are" worship environment. Sunday worships are held at the church's main location in Bowling Green and simulcast to two other Crossland campuses in Glasgow and Morgantown. Crossland's sermons are also available online. During Easter 2019, the church rented an LED video wall to use during services and the response from the congregation was so strong that they decided to invest in a permanent solution. The church collaborated with AV designer and integrator DB Integrations, a strong partner of the church, which led to the installation of a nearly 24-foot-long, 7-foot-high Planar VVR Series LED Video Wall with a 3.9mm pixel pitch (VVR3.9) in a 12x6 configuration from Planar.
Planar VVR Series LED video walls provide the highest level of display flexibility and easily adapt to various designs, including hanging, stacking, wall-mounted and floor-mounted applications as well as traditional and customized frame styles. Featuring magnetically attachable cabinets with a quick-lock system, Planar VVR Series allow fast assembly and support single-person handling. Planar VVR Series LED installations also deliver high brightness, excellent contrast and a wide color gamut for exceptional image quality and dynamic applications.
Adaptable design allows different looks
As a highly flexible solution, the Planar VVR Series provides customers the opportunity to easily change the design configuration of the video wall—a feature that Crossland Community Church is fully embracing. "The Planar VVR Series is designed for the rental and staging market, but we saw its features as well suited for supporting what the church wants to do," said Ronnie Stanford, DB Integrations director of sales and marketing.
Depending on the message or the intent of the sermon—or if the sermon is part of a specific series—the church can quickly modify the design of the video wall to fit their needs, according to Stanford.
"For example, the church can decrease the height of the video wall and stretch it across the stage. Or, they can split the video wall up into more than one installation—such as a main video wall in the middle and two smaller ones flanking it to either side," he said.
DB Integrations added an outboard processor to the video wall, which enables content to adjust to any configurational changes. "The video wall is really easy to work with—it's a very simple process for an end user to reconfigure the layout," Stanford said.
Creating a compelling worship experience
The new Planar VVR Series installation replaces a projector system that the church had previously used for years. "We used to think of our image quality as really good but then we learned there is a huge difference between projecting light and reflecting it," said Crossland Community Church Senior Pastor Gregg Farrell. "The new video wall is overwhelmingly dramatic—we can display lyrics, integrated moving graphics, or video footage and the imagery is incredible."
The benefits of the Planar video wall installation have enhanced several areas of the service and touched across the full spectrum of the congregation. "The breadth of impact has been tremendous," Farrell said. "The biggest response from the audience has come from our oldest demographic—the seniors just love it. That's because they can now really see text and lyrics and engage in the service. The feedback is very positive, and it's not just a result of being enamored by technology, but more about being enamored by the experience."
During services, Crossland employs the video wall as an extension of their set and scenery design, displaying nature scenes or sermon illustrations. For music sets, the church might show moving abstract graphics as a background presentation. Crossland also uses the video wall to display impactful messages—in some cases just one word—that support the theme of each sermon. "We use large white lettering against a black backdrop which creates a really dynamic expression," Farrell said.
In the future, Farrell anticipates using the Planar VVR Series video wall as a teaching tool for sermons. "Our presentation is now far more compelling," he said. "The video wall has enhanced our worship experience as well as the broadcast experience at our other campuses. We haven't yet scratched the surface in terms of the video wall's potential and we are already blown away with what we can do.
