Houses of Worship
Overview
As a well-established church with a strong local presence and a growing congregation, the leadership team set out to create a new building to serve the community for decades to come.
Partners & Collaborators
Client
Dundonald Church
Sector
Houses of Worship
Services
Audio / Video / Lighting
Location
London, United Kingdom
Year
2021
Dundonald Church had outgrown its previous space. As a well-established church with a strong local presence and a growing congregation, the leadership team set out to create a new building that would serve both their Sunday gatherings and wider community activity for decades to come.
They required a full AV and lighting system that would provide reliable performance, high-quality sound and visuals, and the flexibility to adapt over time. The main auditorium needed to support full-band worship services, while additional rooms would cater to youth groups, children's work, and community use. The new space also needed to function as a hub during the week, with a welcoming café and library area. Above all, the church wanted a system that not only worked well on day one, but would continue to deliver for the time to come.
In the main auditorium, the audio system was built around an L-Acoustics loudspeaker array, designed for clarity and full-band performance. The flown array included KS21 speakers at the top, followed by three A15s, with low-end support from two SB28 subwoofers installed beneath the stage. Additional X8 loudspeakers were installed under and above the balcony to ensure consistent coverage across the room. Amplification was handled by a mix of LA4X, LA8, and LA2Xi amplifiers, matched to the requirements of each speaker type.
Elsewhere in the building, L-Acoustics 5XT speakers were installed in the café, lobby, and library areas, providing background audio with the same tonal consistency. The youth halls, spread across three floors, were equipped with X8 loudspeakers to deliver performances suitable for music, video, and spoken word events.
The system was controlled using an Allen & Heath Avantis console, with a GX4816 stage box to handle stage-level inputs and maintain a consistent architecture. Wireless audio was provided via a Sennheiser EW-D system, including both handheld microphones and bodypack transmitters with DPA headset mics for flexibility across different roles and formats.
The video system was designed to support both in-room presentations and building-wide distribution. In the main auditorium, a Vivitek projector was installed to deliver clear visuals for worship lyrics, teaching, and multimedia content. In the entrance area, an 86-inch Philips screen provided a central display for live relay, event messaging, and digital signage. Video signals were distributed throughout the building using Blustream hardware, allowing feeds to be shared across different zones.
Live streaming wasn’t part of the initial brief, but was added in 2020 in response to the changing needs brought about by the pandemic. An ATEM-based switching setup was installed, along with an ESI encoder for multi-platform streaming, allowing services to be broadcast live and extending the church’s reach beyond the building.
The lighting solution for the auditorium was designed to enhance both live and online experiences. The system provided functional key lighting for teaching and music, as well as flexibility for special events. All fixtures were specified for long-term use and low maintenance, supporting both visual clarity and a consistent atmosphere across gatherings.
All audio, video, and lighting systems were routed through a purpose-built server room, providing a centralised control and maintenance point. The infrastructure was designed with three independent networks to ensure reliability and ease of troubleshooting. A Ubiquiti switch managed the video network, a dedicated control network was integrated with the church’s broader AV systems, and a NETGEAR switch supported Dante audio networking.
A central AHN64 matrix mixer served as the system’s control hub, handling both the auditorium signal routing and building-wide audio and video distribution.
Adlib approached this as a long-term partnership rather than a standalone install. From the early stages, the focus was on building a system that would support the church for the next 25 years. Consultation with the client covered both immediate technical needs and the wider operational context, including the importance of volunteer operation, scalability, and resilience.
The goal wasn’t just to meet a spec, but to guide the church through the process of making informed, future-focused decisions, ensuring that the investment would serve the congregation well in the long term.
Recognising that the AV systems would often be run by volunteers, Adlib developed a training programme to suit non-technical operators. This included on-site training sessions, documentation, and continued support after launch. The system was designed to be intuitive and manageable, with the aim of enabling the church team to take ownership and operate it confidently from week to week.
Dundonald Church now has a building that matches both the scale and vision of its ministry. The AV systems have delivered a clear improvement in the worship experience, with intelligible sound, high-quality visuals, and a well-lit stage. Building-wide connectivity means the church can easily adapt the space to suit different uses, and live streaming has become a core part of how they engage with their wider community.
The church’s leadership noted that the team “really got what we’re trying to do” and understood the vision behind the space. Feedback from the first Sunday confirmed that people could hear clearly, follow visuals on screen, and enjoy the experience was exactly what was hoped for.
With the right technical foundation in place, the space is now set to serve the church and its community well into the future.
Credits
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