SES Integration Deploys Clear-Com at Multiple Elevation Church Production Locations

Clear-Com has been chosen by SES Integration of Concord, NC, to be the intercom solution for Elevation Church’s broadcast-production facility and church campus in Charlotte, NC. Known as Elevation Ballantyne, the 75,000-sq.-ft. facility produces multiple online video streams that are broadcast live at Elevation Church’s 15 locations across Canada and the U.S., as well as online. In addition to its production facility, Elevation Ballantyne is home to a modern 1,850-seat auditorium with broadcast-quality A/V equipment and video cameras.

“We have a long-standing relationship with Clear-Com and count on them to provide our clients with reliable, flexible, and expandable intercom solutions,” says Trey Blair, director, SES Integration. “When our longstanding client Elevation Church hired us to integrate their new production facility, it only made sense to select Clear-Com as our intercom supplier.”

With its suite of Clear-Com intercom products, Elevation Ballantyne can serve a full range of live broadcast requirements across many locations. This includes producing and distributing weekly sermons by church leader Pastor Steven Furtick and his team, plus integrating live feeds from other campuses, including live baptisms over IP.

“The best part is that the multisite capability offered by our Clear-Com intercom lets everyone work together as if they were all in one place,” Blair says. “This means that they are one big crew, operationally speaking. That’s how tight the intercom integration is — no matter how many locations happen to be connected.”

To link production crews within Elevation Ballantyne, plus those at the church’s other sites and on-the-road remote crews, SES Integration selected Clear-Com Eclipse HX-Delta digital matrix intercom that has built-in slots for expanding the system. For this facility, SES Integration has loaded the Eclipse HX system with an IVC-32 IP interface card for connecting to its local and remote production crews using the V-Series user keypanels, Agent-IC mobile app, and LQ IP interfaces with local partyline systems over secure IP networks within Elevation Ballantyne and a number of remote campus locations.

“A number of Elevation Church’s on-the-road crews have loaded Clear-Com’s Agent-IC intercom app on their Apple and Android smartphones,’ says Blair. “This app lets the smartphone users not only connect back in and communicate with the production crew at Elevation Ballantyne but act as if they are active users with their own virtual intercom panel.”

Moreover, an E-Que-HX wireless cell controller card within the Eclipse HX seamlessly integrates FreeSpeak II wireless beltpacks in the 1.9 GHz range to the overall intercom system. Two FreeSpeak II transceiver antenna modules were strategically placed to provide full wireless coverage throughout the facility.

“It is partners like SES Integration that make Clear-Com the intercom brand of choice among many house-of-worship facilities,” says Pat Hamp, regional sales manager, Clear-Com. “They understand the needs of their church clients and work diligently with them and us (as the equipment supplier) to create a flexible and scalable communications solution that the church can depend on today and build on in the future. We are very pleased with what they have provided to Elevation Church.”