GloworksGloworks

Places of worship · Screens

Screens for everyone who cannot see the front

Lyrics and readings in the building, image magnification down a long nave, and daylight-readable LED on a festival ground where most of the crowd will never get close to the sanctum.

The short version

On a festival ground, the screen is the event

It is easy to think of screens as an addition to the real thing. On a festival ground they are the real thing for most of the people there. If twenty thousand people are on open ground and a few hundred can see the sanctum, then the screens are what the other nineteen thousand-odd came to look at. Sizing them by budget rather than by sightlines is the commonest and most expensive mistake in festival AV.

Indoors it is a subtler problem. A long nave puts the back third of a congregation far enough from the altar that faces stop being legible, and older congregations feel that long before anyone says so. Image magnification fixes it, and lyrics or readings on screen change participation more than most committees expect — people sing when they can see the words without holding a book.

Daylight is the constraint that decides everything outdoors. A screen bright enough indoors is a grey rectangle at two in the afternoon in April. Outdoor LED is specified by brightness and pixel pitch against the actual viewing distance, and getting either wrong wastes the whole hire — too fine a pitch at distance is money spent on detail nobody can resolve, too coarse up close looks like a scoreboard.

Then there is where a screen can physically stand. Ground conditions, wind loading, power, and whether a structure blocks a sightline that people have used for generations. On a festival ground all four of those get decided by walking it, not from a plan.

The honest note on cost: LED is priced by size, days and ground conditions, and in season the binding constraint is availability rather than price. Kerala's Medam festivals and the Christmas fortnight commit most of the region's screen stock months ahead. If your event is in April, the conversation should start in January.

What we do

The parts that make up the job.

01

Outdoor LED for festival grounds

Daylight-readable screens specified by brightness and pixel pitch against real viewing distances, with structures planned for the ground they stand on.

02

Image magnification indoors

So the back of a long nave can see what the front row sees. The single biggest accessibility improvement available in most large worship buildings.

03

Lyrics, readings and text

On screen and legible from the back, with the operating side simple enough for a volunteer to drive during a service.

04

Projection where it suits the building

In buildings where LED would be intrusive or the light levels allow it, projection is cheaper and less visually dominant. We will say which one your building wants.

05

Screens plus the stream, one crew

The same feed drives the screens in the room and the stream going out, from one team rather than two vendors pointing at each other.

06

Convention-scale deployment

Multiple large-format screens across a ground, delay-aligned with the sound so the picture and the voice arrive together.

What we cover

Where screens change the event

Ordered by how much difference they make, not by how large they are.

Festival grounds

Where most of the crowd cannot get near the front. The screens are the event for them.

Conventions

Tens of thousands over several days. Multiple screens, delay-aligned with the sound.

Long naves

Where the back third cannot make out faces at the altar. Image magnification, indoors.

Lyrics and congregational singing

Participation improves measurably when nobody is holding a book.

Overflow spaces

Halls and courtyards used when the building fills at Christmas or a feast day.

Eidgah and outdoor prayer

Where the congregation is far larger than any building and spread across open ground.

How it runs

How screen work is planned

  1. 01

    Walk the ground and sit in the back row

    Viewing distances and sightlines are measured, not estimated. The back row is where the specification comes from.

  2. 02

    Specify for the light

    Brightness and pixel pitch chosen against real daylight and real distance. This decides whether the hire was worth anything.

  3. 03

    Plan the structure and the power

    Ground conditions, wind loading and a power plan — outdoors these are safety decisions before they are technical ones.

  4. 04

    Align picture and sound

    At distance, sound arrives late. Screens are delay-aligned so a voice and a mouth agree.

Why Gloworks

One crew, one roof, start to finish.

01

Sized from the back row

Screen size comes from viewing distance, not from what fits the budget. An undersized screen is the entire hire wasted.

02

One crew for screens, sound and stream

Nobody standing between three vendors at eleven at night working out whose fault the black screen is.

03

We will recommend projection

Where the building suits it, projection is cheaper and less intrusive than LED. Selling you the larger thing regardless would be easy and wrong.

04

Booked early or not at all

In festival season the constraint is stock, not price. We would rather tell you in January than disappoint you in April.

Where we work

Where we supply screens

Across South India from Bengaluru, with Kerala's festival season the heaviest run. Screen work travels well because it is scoped in days rather than hours — but availability in season is the real constraint, so book early.

  • Bengaluru
  • Kochi
  • Kottayam
  • Thrissur
  • Thiruvananthapuram
  • Chennai
  • Coimbatore
  • Hyderabad
  • Mangaluru
  • Goa

Frequently asked

The questions we get every week.

What size screen do we need?

It comes from the viewing distance to your furthest row, not from the budget. We measure the ground or the nave and specify from that. An undersized screen is not a partial result — it is money spent on something nobody at the back can read.

LED or projection?

Outdoors or in daylight, LED, because projection cannot compete with ambient light. Indoors with controlled light, projection is cheaper and much less visually dominant in a building where a large black rectangle would be intrusive. We will tell you which your building wants.

How much does LED cost?

It is priced by size, number of days and ground conditions, so it needs the specifics. We quote it as part of the event rather than from a rate card, because a screen without the structure, power and crew to run it is not a usable quote.

How far in advance should we book for a festival?

Months. In Kerala's Medam season and over Christmas the region's screen stock is committed early, and the binding constraint is availability rather than price. If your event is in April, start in January.

Can the same screens show the live stream feed?

Yes, and it is the efficient way to do it — one production feeding the screens in the room and the stream going out. It is also fewer people to coordinate and fewer places for it to go wrong.

Will a screen block sightlines?

It can, and it is worth taking seriously in a building where people have sat in the same place for decades. We plan positions around that, and it is one of the reasons we walk the ground rather than working from a drawing.

Keep reading

Tell us the ground and the date.

Size comes from the back row, and availability comes from booking early. Both are settled with one visit.