Five years ago, Charlotte, NC-based Elevation Church didn’t even have its own facility, and its congregation comprised just seven families.
Each week, worship services were held in the lobby of a local high school. Now, with upwards of 8,000 attendees and a state of the art wireless infrastructure by Sennheiser, Elevation Church is recognized as the fourth fastest-growing church in the U.S.
Its growth has been somewhat unorthodox in nature, since there is no mega-church to speak of; instead, it has embraced a progressive, distributed model with each campus linked by state of the art technology.
The church recently opened its fourth campus, Elevation Blakeney: an extremely high-end performance theatre that will also double as a rental facility for local performances and events.
Installed by Charlotte-based Audio Ethics, Elevation Blakeney features a world-class A/V and lighting installation; like Elevation’s other campuses, it uses Sennheiser wireless microphone technology throughout.
Following the wireless installation, Sennheiser’s Kent Margraves supervised spectrum analysis and frequency coordination using Sennheiser’s WSM software to ensure the facility’s wireless functions would perform to the highest standards.
Elevation Church utilizes point-to-point (P2P) technology at each of its campuses, including Elevation Blakeney. This enables the church to connect audio and video among multiple campuses so each location can worship as a larger, consolidated group—even when the nearest campus is located miles away.
Using P2P technology, each location can enjoy high definition viewing on large screens, along with pristine audio quality provided by Sennheiser.
“We knew we were going to get outstanding performance from Sennheiser because we were already using a large amount of G3 wireless systems, 900 series capsules and other items at our other campuses,” says Trey Blair, FOH mixer at Elevation Blakeney.
“The driving decision to go with Sennheiser was the outstanding quality of the microphone capsules, particularly the e 965. We run upwards of 105 dB frequently and this capsule handles it just fine and with much more control over sibilance. More importantly, we get the fine audio detail and tonal definition that we need in the mix.”
“We also appreciate Sennheiser’s networkability and integrated antenna distribution, which is included in the 2000 series receivers,” Blair continues. “This can be very helpful for monitoring and control, and is not a feature you can find on competitor’s models.”
All in all, Elevation Blakeney installed 28 channels of wireless, consisting of 10
Sennheiser SKM 2000 transmitters and six SK 2000 bodypacks.
For Pastor Steven Furtick, the team specified a Sennheiser EM 3732 receiver outputting AES digital audio, combined with a Sennheiser HSP2 headworn microphone. For his handheld microphone, the team chose a Sennheiser SKM 5200 transmitter coupled with a Neumann 105 capsule.
So far, Blair is pleased with the overall performance of the microphones and the wireless system: “The RF performance is fantastic and everything is spot on.”
“The artists love singing on the e 965 capsules, and we are simply blown away by the HSP 2 headworn microphone that our pastor is using. From a FOH perspective, the Sennheiser gear makes my life a lot easier by keeping my Worship Leaders happy.”
Following are the Sennheiser components included in the installation:
(4) channels of SKM 2000 transmitters coupled with e 965 capsules
(6) channels of SKM 2000 transmitters coupled with e 945 capsules
(6) channels of SK 2000 bodypacks
(1) HSP 2 headworn mic
(8) dual channel EM 2050 receivers
(1) EM 3732 U
(1) SKM 5200 transmitter, coupled with a Neumann KK105S capsule
(10) ew 300 IEM G3 in ear monitor systems
(1) AC 3200 IEM antenna combiner
(1) AC 3 antenna combiner
(2) A 5000 CP antenna transmitter
