Preparing Your House of Worship for Reopening with AV

Nothing can disrupt your house of worship’s service faster than technical difficulties. With social-distanced and remote services, supporting your community and staff with updated technology is crucial as you begin to reopen. Whether your congregation is completely remote or at partial capacity, it’s important that your house of worship has the AV equipment to support your outreach. Here are the best ways to prepare your house of worship for reopening:

Update Your Video Capabilities

Chances are, more than half of your congregation watches your services online on a platform like Zoom. Because of this, it’s crucial that your video technology is up-to-date to ensure that your congregation and staff can experience the service fully.

Updating your video capabilities can also help the accessibility during social distancing in-person. Projectors can help worshipers with poor eyesight, those sitting far away, or those with obstructed views. The projector needs to have the right combination of ambient lighting and color contrast or people may experience barriers, such as the contrast of a slide against a background in a dimly lit room.

Amplify Your Acoustics

Services require listening, and the quality of your house of worship’s acoustics influence speech intelligibility and make it a crucial aspect of accessibility.

Acoustics is a complex area and requires expert advice, design, and installation. The main areas for consideration are background noise and echoes, both of which are affected by design and construction materials. Sound-absorbing floor, wall finishes, and ceiling finishes are important elements to consider to eliminate echoes and background noise. A house of worship should be fitted with surround-sound speakers in the ceilings or walls so the pastor’s voice can be heard clearly throughout the room. The speakers should have the capability to connect with a congregant’s personal-hearing device.

Electronic Design conducts Intelligibility Tests, which help determine how well your congregants can understand what is being said through your sound system from every location in your building.

Temperature Check Tablets

As some of your congregation comes back in person, it’s crucial that health and safety are a top priority. To keep everyone safe, consider installing the TAURI Temperature Check Tablet. This is a hands-free, accurate, and fast alternative to checking individual temperatures. The TAURI has a facial recognition tool that differentiates the human face from other subjects. It provides reminders and alerts for high-temperatures and non-mask wearing individuals. In a post quarantine world, this extra layer of protection helps with peace of mind and the overall safety of your community.

Understand Your AV with EDC

It won’t matter how state-of-the-art your system is if nobody can operate it. At EDC, we believe in supporting our clients long after installation, starting with educating them on their new hardware. Upon request, training can be conducted for leaders, support volunteers, or tech-focused worshipers to make sure your new system lives up to its potential.

EDC has experience working with houses of worship across the Twin Cities area. We are ready to help you update your AV system to support safety in your congregation. Contact Electronic Design Company’s professionals at 612-335-2300 to ask about our services and schedule an appointment.