The Summit Church is a Southern Baptist multi-site church that meets at eleven locations throughout the greater Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, area. Founded in 1961, The Summit Church named J.D. Greear lead pastor in 2001, where he also serves as one of the church’s Directional Elders and a member of the Executive Team. Recently, the church leadership decided to deploy three video walls at the Brier Creek Campus, which in addition to being the church’s main campus, also serves as the primary broadcast campus in Durham. Church leadership chose to install the Rhodium Series LED Video Display from Lakeland, Fla.-based, Vanguard LED Displays.
DP Design of Milwaukee, Wis., an AV design / build firm with a nationwide reach that specializes in the worship market, was contracted to design and install the new video display system at The Summit Church. Company founder and CEO David Price, who oversees the company’s sales, system design, and installations, elected to deploy a total of 240 Vanguard Rhodium Series P4 video display cabinets.
“The Summit Church is a contemporary house of worship,” Price reports. “They offer a worship style that incorporates a blend of some traditional worship practices with a mostly contemporary bend that is both casual in nature and very inviting. As the Brier Creek campus is the main worship location, we wanted to make certain the new video display system was clear and vibrant to fully engage the congregation. To ensure this was the case, we selected Vanguard LED Displays’ Rhodium Series.”
The new video display setup at The Summit Church includes a large, ultra-wide wall display positioned in the center of the stage that utilizes 112 Vanguard Rhodium P4 display cabinets. This primary display consists of 14 cabinets wide by 8 cabinets tall and is flown—translating to a display that measures 29.4 feet in width by 9.4 feet high. There are also two secondary displays for the left and right sides of the stage. Each side screen incorporates 64 Vanguard Rhodium P4 display panels, configured in an 8 x 8 panel setup that each measures 16.8 feet wide by 9.4 feet tall.
According to Price, “The three video walls enhance the worship experience by displaying graphics and lyrics on the center screen while the two side panels primarily serve as IMAG (image magnification) of the worship team. When the Brier Creek campus is a playback campus—meaning the message is being delivered live from another location—all three displays act as video playback walls.”
When asked about what made the Vanguard Rhodium LED Video Display Series the best solution for this project, Price offered the following thoughts. “First and foremost is image quality,” he explains, “and in that regard, the Rhodium P4 panels deliver exceptional color and brightness uniformity as well as low profile masks that result in very wide viewing angles. Reliability and service were equally important considerations, and in that regard, we knew Vanguard would provide exceptional support and service over the lifetime of the product. Every aspect of the system, right down to and including the initial unboxing of the system was impressive.”
Price was equally enthusiastic about Vanguard LED Displays’ customer service. He says, “The support was fantastic,” says Price. “The team at Vanguard was quick to respond to any questions. A couple weeks into the project, we discovered that two processors seemed to develop issues. New processors were in the mail that day and seamlessly swapped that week. The company wasted no time correcting the situation.”
The Summit Church installation took place in July and the equipment was placed into service later that month. Since then, Price reports that church leaders are impressed with the new video display system. “Summit Church is ecstatic with the new systems,” he says. “The plan is to incorporate more Vanguard products into their new campus, which is currently under construction and additional Vanguard equipment will likely be going into a few other campuses over the next couple years. They plan to stick with the Rhodium P4 at all campuses. The new Vanguard displays have changed the dynamic of the Brier Creek campus so much, they’re excited to implement similar setups across their other campuses—and you can’t ask for much more than that!”
To learn more about DP Design, visit the company’s website at www.dpdesign.us.
