The house of worship market is rising to the challenges of modern congregations. Reece Webb traces the evolution of the market and its unique clientele.
The Covid-19 pandemic posed a monumental challenge for houses of worship. At a time when social distancing kept people apart, and the stresses of lockdown life took their toll, houses of worship had to find new ways to engage their congregations and offer a sense of community and spiritual guidance at a time when it was needed most.
The house of worship market presents a very unique clientele with its own processes, knowledge base and requirements that often requires a specialist touch to navigate.
Mark Simcock, owner, Progression AV, explains: “I’ve grown up in church and involved on the AV side of houses of worship for 15 years, both as a person and as a professional. In the HoW market, clients often go with who they know, and I understand this market and process that other AV companies may not necessarily understand. Churches vote on a sound system, and getting a congregation to do that can be tricky as other companies may not understand that process; it’s very rare that it’s one person making a decision, it’s usually a congregation.
Shoreline City Church equipped with ROE Visual LED displays
“I can always tell when I’ve walked into a church building that has had an AV company carry out the installation; it’s a 100-volt line system with all the speakers daisy-chained together, which doesn’t sound good. The remit would have been voice reinforcement, and an AV company would provide exactly that, which doesn’t sound right! A lot of companies may not understand the nuances or the varied usages of churches, or the people as well.”
The communal nature of house of worship projects means that, rather than dealing with dedicated specialist technology teams as an integrator typically would in a corporate environment, house of worship integrators are working with a congregation from all walks of life, typically without sophisticated technological understanding or knowledge.
"Churches vote on a sound system, and getting a congregation to do that can be tricky as other companies may not understand that process." - Mark Simcock, Progression AV
Mark Malherbe, technical director, Prosound, clarifies: “I was working in Zimbabwe at an AV exhibition, and I carried out some level one training, primarily to the house of worship market. If you’re going into a normal event space or a small theatre, the crew there usually have a tech background, whereas house of worship doesn’t. We operate throughout Africa, and we are finding that the first phase is to go in and educate/train, then going in to carry out the installation. In the congregation, you usually have somebody who is de-facto ‘sound expert’, which doesn’t work.”
The Luminiscence show at the Church of Sain-Eustache in Paris
While technical education in the house of worship market remains a key obstacle for integrators across EMEA, it is important to avoid thinking of the market as a monolith. Every religion, every denomination, every venue will have its own requirements based on both the demands and expectations of the service, as well Simcock. “It was the quickest I’ve ever seen sign offs. A house of worship sign off can often take years, whereas during Covid, they were being signed off in days. We’re back to the slightly slower process now, which isn’t a bad thing.
The Sanctuary of Lourdes’ Basilica, France
Simcock continues: “Live streaming has been a major shift; there are a group of churches in rural Aberdeen, Scotland, that want to install a streaming solution that operates between five buildings because the local congregation may not want to travel between them. They effectively want to keep these churches open with just one minister, standardising their live streaming and audio system. Live streaming is common in houses of worship, but they really want to have that interaction between the congregations, potentially having one minister streaming to five congregations at the same time, with those congregations interacting back remotely.
“It can be really difficult to do tech in a church, and so many churches jumped on the bandwagon of live streaming [during the pandemic], but now they are saying that the audio or video isn’t great, because it’s a hard thing to manage. In some cases, it is simpler to record the services and post it online, rather than traditional live streaming. It’s not a simple case of faders up, vocal mics on etc., it’s so much more, and a lot of churches looked to the bigger ones in America and Europe for inspiration, but those churches usually have a big technical team or a production room; it’s not so easy to do on a budget or without technical people.
Zürich’s Liebfrauenkirche church, equipped with Iconyx loudspeakers
“Keeping stuff simple is the name of the game. Consistency is important too – training is so important, it’s not about necessarily understanding everything about how the desk works, it’s about helping them consistently make the system sound good each week, not missing any cues or having the tech just work. It’s about consistency week-in, week-out. Everybody hears everything, and that to me is far more valuable.”
"Ultimately, you need to keep the congregations there, and it’s becoming more of a structured performance." - Mark Malherbe, Prosound
Dubai's Khawaneej Mosque, illuminated by Digital Projection projectors
The house of worship market has already experienced exceptional change and evolution since the Covid-19 pandemic, so how will this market continue to blend technology to enhance the experience of congregations?
Malherbe says: “I work as a theatrical sound designer for large format musicals, and I am finding that the technology that I am applying for these shows is now feeding down into the house of worship market. We’re doing QLAB-based offerings, video-mapping, everything to make the production tighter.
“Ultimately, you need to keep the congregations there, and it’s becoming more of a structured performance, we’re in conversations with some clients about spatial audio, because there are a fixed set of inputs in their fixed environments, so they can start to play around, it’s not one-off performances and I think that’s really where the market is going to evolve.”