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Franklin Avenue
Franklin Avenue
Baptist Church
New Orleans, LA
3,500
$1 million
Audio, Video, Lighting, Production IT, Acoustic Design & Treatment, Guardian GameFilm, Guardian Lifeline
Commercial Integrator 2019: Best House of Worship Project
In 2005, Franklin Avenue Baptist Church was a growing church in New Orleans and looking to add a second campus. Then, Hurricane Katrina hit and their congregation was scattered. As their congregation returned, they soon realized that the need for a second campus was paramount to expanding their vision. But as they began the process of acquiring land for a second campus, it became clear to the leadership team, that a different approach was needed.
Franklin Baptist Church’s leadership reached out to Mankin Media with a dream to make a big impact. They wanted to build a facility that would enable all of their congregation to fit into one room while maintaining high-quality audio and video coverage for the entire room. They wanted to raise the bar on what they had been doing in their previous facility. With the Mankin 4D process (Dream, Develop, Deploy, Defend) the church staff knew the plan from the beginning and were able to make necessary adjustments as the project progressed.
During the 18-month design/deploy process, communication was important to both parties. Mankin presented an iPad to the church elders in 2017 to help speed coordination meetings. “It was important for the church leaders to see the renderings and files that our engineering team was producing every month…”, said Ben Mankin, President, “...it was easy to deliver an iPad with the correct collaborative applications on it to have status report meetings.”
Because of the size of the room, there were many unique challenges. Lighting the large choir and baptismal with enough light to provide an even throw, but still have enough dynamics for the worship team on the stage was just one example. Mankin installed 59 Chauvet moving lights to help provide those dynamics. They also installed a video system to both capture, record, and then stream the worship and sermons to other locations around the building and over the internet. As the deploy team was wrapping up the installation, Mankin's Guardian team began the work of training and equipping the staff and many volunteers it takes to operate the Audio, Video, and Lighting Systems. In hiring Mankin Media, they found a partner that would help them chase after those future goals. Mankin was brought on to build out the audio, video, and lighting systems in the brand-new 3,500-seat sanctuary.
One of the unique features of this entire project was that the tech team wanted to have experience insurance and included Mankin Media’s Guardian services to help ensure everything ran smoothly. Guardian is a suite of products that provides support modern-day AVL systems are complex, and troubleshooting can be tricky, even for the technically savvy. The Guardian service links Franklin Avenue Baptist Church’s production systems to Mankin’s network operations center (NOC). The Guardian Protect service allows Franklin Baptist’s staff and volunteers to pick up a phone and call Mankin’s knowledgeable staff on a Sunday morning. This gives their team a knowledge source of information and helps troubleshoot during their rehearsals or even during service.
L-Acoustics Kara PA
Digital Projection Laser projectors
Allen & Heath DLive audio console
20x Chain motors
52x Chauvet R2 & R3 moving fixtures
Shure Wireless talent mics and IEM
Launch Photo Gallery
Franklin Avenue is back to meeting together each weekend. The production team and volunteers now are using this new technology to impact their community in amazing new ways. They also know that whenever they need help, the Guardian team is there to have their backs.