When Park Cities Baptist Church renovated, modernized and expanded their facilities, they used a whole spectrum of up-to-date media and equipment to get their message out and help their more than 9,000 members get more integrated into the church community. This included an acoustic redesign of the main auditorium, video projection and lighting; a website with downloadable text copies of sermons, as well as podcasts and audio sermons and bible study; an internet presence on sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Vimeo and Waymarking; and a new Community Life Center Building that uses AxisTV digital signage software to communicate with the congregation.
“The new building is pretty contemporary, attached to the old church campus,” explains Brandon Boyd, Director of Technical Services. “We wanted something flashier to get attention and communicate, and I’d seen electronic signs at sporting events. I thought – why can’t we use those?” After a Google search, he got in contact with Visix. “We thought that, instead of spending hundreds of dollars printing posters all the time, we could spend money on this system and save paper and expense in the long run,” Boyd tells us. “What attracted me to AxisTV was that it’s low maintenance. Plus we can have multiple user accounts and, because of the CAT-5 integration, I don’t have to run a dedicated cable to each display.”
When the Community Life Center building was constructed, AxisTV was initially deployed only throughout the structure. “Since then, we’ve spread it all over campus,” Boyd says. “And as the campus gets updated, we can match content to the look of the building.” The Community Life Center was designed as a modern update of the classic Georgian architecture of the existing campus, and has won several design awards – including Best Church Design in the House of Worship Awards and an Honorable Mention for American Design Innovation from the Dallas Chapter of the Society of Interior Design. The digital signs blend seamlessly into the new look, adding to the contemporary feeling without breaking the design’s continuity.
AxisTV pushes content to a 56-inch screen in the concourse of their three-level, 750-space underground garage; to additional screens in the 73,500 sq ft, 1200-seat Great Hall; as well as to common spaces and youth and child educational spaces. “We try to place digital signs in rooms and areas with high traffic,” says Boyd. Content might be text and graphic messages, PowerPoint, or in-house created video. “We don’t use any live plug-ins, but we do use an informational ticker.”
“The process is straightforward. Someone fills out a form, a designer creates it, and off it goes onto the system,” explains Boyd. “Different ministries have approval rights, though I might yank something down if I think it shouldn’t be up there.” The church has successfully used AxisTV content to drive people to their website, “so we know it’s working.” Boyd continues, “It’s been great, extremely helpful, especially the one in the garage.”
“Digital signage content can be as graphic-heavy as you want; graphics can be still or moving video. It allows you to be creative in a way that print doesn’t.” Even though the church still uses some print media, Boyd hopes one day to replace all posters with digital signage driven by AxisTV.
“You can always update it – you’re not waiting for a printer to send you a proof. And the system updates and upgrades the look of the whole campus. It’s eye candy.”