Lake Pointe Baptist Church in Rockwall, Texas has expanded their intercom system with equipment from Telex/RTS, including a Zeus 24-port compact matrix, KP32 keypanels and BKP4 desktop keypanels. Approximately 6500 people attend 3 services each weekend at the Church, and enjoy state-of-the-art audio and video production facilities. Intercom at Lake Pointe is primarily used for coordinating the A/V elements of the Church services, along with providing a means of communication to their remote campus in Mesquite, TX (about 15 miles away) and their annexed youth building, which features an RTS TW system. Wes Hartley, Media Director at Lake Pointe, described how the new intercom system has made a big difference since its installation in early February:

“Ours is a thriving, modern Church with a large congregation. Lake Pointe is a 365,000 square-foot complex on a 36-acre campus. Churches like ours have to take audio and video technology seriously, as we need to provide a quality worship experience for thousands, rather than a couple hundred, of people. Behind the scenes we have an audio team, a lighting team and video team, along with stagehands. Onstage we have a praise band and a praise team for worship, a praise pastor and a teaching pastor who use multiple media elements throughout the service. It’s our job to coordinate all these elements, and we needed new equipment to help make this happen more effectively. Telex/RTS Regional Manager Britt Bowers helped the media team at Lake Pointe select components for an intercom system that would help them achieve their goals for a new level of production sophistication.”

Hartley continued: “We had been on a two-channel party line type system – one channel for cameras and one for audio. This was tricky if something broke in the video setup: if the video team was troubleshooting an audio issue, we’d be unable to execute video cues. Personnel changes have also made it necessary to expand the system. We created a couple of producer positions in-house: the house producer, who has overall responsibility for ensuring the program cues happen, and a video producer who helps the video director execute cues. Previously, there was no way that these two guys could have a discrete conversation. Now we have ISO channels that allow discrete communication to occur between specific locations, for specific sets of ears. Another advantage of the new system is that a channel doesn’t have to latch to be switched on – the A-Z Edit software allows the system to be configured so certain channel switches need to be held down to be operational. Details like that keep things clean and running smoothly. Perhaps the best part is that we already had a two-wire system in place, and we were able to interface with that two-wire using the new matrix. Telex/RTS equipment is backwards compatible – another added value. We didn’t have to run new cables to our cameras; we could utilize the existing two-wire system that still worked perfectly. This also saved a considerable amount of money.”

Hartley added: “On any given weekend we have around 45 volunteers working. We have to be careful how we communicate with our volunteers, in order to ensure things run smoothly, and also to offer assistance and constructive criticism. These aren’t professional A/V guys: this system helps us alleviate certain frustrations that might occur, so instead we can help the volunteers work to the best of their abilities by effective communication. In the middle of a production we need to be able to communicate quickly and clearly. Again, this system not only helps us do that seamlessly, it helps ease the tension that could occur between a seasoned pro working with a good-intentioned volunteer – a situation common in the modern House of Worship. The chain of communication, from the decision-making pro to the volunteer camera operator, is what holds a successful service together. In the heat of production, this system helps things stay cool, calm and collected. As our A/V system became more and more complicated, we required more channels where one-on-one communication was possible. We now have that system.”

“We have a remote campus about 15 miles away in Mesquite – they do live worship and DVD presentations there. This is basically Lake Pointe at another location. We had specific requirements for this arrangement, for which we installed a TIF2000 Telephone Interface: if we needed to execute simultaneous cues or troubleshoot an issue, they could dial into our main system and talk to the right person immediately. We’re considering going live on Sundays at Mesquite – at the moment they’re show our Saturday Lake Pointe service on DVD. Times have changed at Church, and technology is now an essential element of our tradition of Worship: this installation represents the commitment this Church has to improving our growing congregation’s worship experience.”