We’re well into Lent, and Easter is not far away. But it’s not too late to prepare your sanctuary for the large crowds of Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday. Ninety-three percent of churches rank Easter as the holiday with the highest attendance, says LifeWay Research.
That means you don’t want anything to go wrong for this important service, which represents a great way to attract the unchurched into your church community, as well as to turn the “Easter and Christmas” crowds into regular churchgoers.
While it’s too late to plan a complete audio visual systems revamp less than three weeks before Easter (on the other hand, right after Christmas is a great time!), it is a good time to consider individual components that may be wearing out, video upgrades, or even trading up your analog mixing board for a digital console.
Ask yourself, and your tech team and worship leaders, these questions make sure your church audio video systems are in the best shape for Easter Sunday.
1. Do You Have Enough Mics and Monitors?
You might have an expanded choir or band for Easter Sunday. Do you have enough mics and stage or in-ear monitors? If not, it’s time to look into renting additional equipment or – if you regularly run short or you find that certain mics and monitors don’t work – buying new equipment.
2. Are Any Speakers or Amps Not Working?
If you have digital amplifiers with read-outs, a glance in your equipment room will tell you if amplifiers aren’t functioning properly. For analog amps, you’ll have to listen. Are any speakers not performing? Troubleshoot to determine if it’s the amp or speaker, and see if it can be repaired or if it needs to be replaced.
3.Are the Screens Working?
Is a projector bulb near its end-of-life? Has an LED screen had issues lately? It may be time to replace these critical components. But first, be sure the culprit is not just a bad cable or a wire that wasn’t terminated properly. If your tech team can’t get to the bottom of the issue, your audio visual installer can help.
4. Are You Presenting the Video Quality Today’s Church-goers Demand?
During Easter production rehearsals, does every seat have a clear line-of-sight to at least one of your screens? Are the screens large enough to show the detail you want, and congregation members expect? Are the colors true to life? LED screens have made tremendous advancements in recent years, with screens up to 70 inches – and beyond – affordable for many budgets. Additionally, advancements in color reproduction technology, brightness, and refresh rates puts today’s screens miles ahead of older systems. If a curved screen would fit your congregation’s needs, you can find them in OLED models that are also surprisingly affordable.
Just before Easter is a great time to give your sanctuary that “Wow” factor that may have been missing, or just make sure that you’re presenting the best video quality you can afford to discerning congregation members.
5. Is Your Overflow Space Ready?
How many attendees are you expecting for Easter service? Is your sanctuary designed to hold them all? If not, it’s time to ensure your overflow space audio visual systems are ready to meet the demands of today’s tech savvy audiences, who expect an experience as good as – if not better – than what they’d get in the main congregation if they are gathered in an overflow space.
Depending on the size of the space, anything from new projection systems to a video wall could meet your needs to make a large congregation worshipping in separate rooms all feel like one.
6. Do You Need Rental Equipment?
If your church needs lighting, additional audio equipment, or temporary screens to take your Easter service to the next level, it’s time to decide if it’s best to rent or buy these gear, and start shopping around for fair prices, good service, and a firm who will take the time to work with you on your church’s overall technology, so it doesn’t look like you just brought in new equipment with no thought of how it would fit into the overall design.
7. Do You Strive to Reach Even More People?
If you’re considering recording and streaming your video services, Easter is a good time to make that leap. (Although we recommend a trial run of systems in rehearsal a few days before.) JD Pro is currently working on providing the means for a Staten Island church on a strict budget to record, edit and stream services to reach homebound congregation members and to expand their church’s reach beyond the New York area. Whatever you can afford, we can get creative with today’s technology to make it happen.
Are you ready for your Easter service? If not, JD Pro is here to help.
Why not give us a call and see how JD Pro can serve you.