Invisible Series
About The Gathering at The Hope Center
The Gathering at Hope Center KC, a versatile 13,127-square-foot event space in Kansas City, opened in 2025 in a century-old church. Owned and operated by the non-profit Hope Center KC, all revenue from events supports the organization’s youth, family, and community development initiatives, including a medical clinic, an elementary charter school, and expanded community programs.
The church had been closed for decades, and the community wanted to preserve the space rather than tear it down. In 2021, fundraising efforts began to revitalize the building as a multipurpose venue for community events. Collaborating with architects and builders specializing in historic preservation, the building has been beautifully restored to its former glory, preserving arched glass windows, high vaulted ceilings, and intricate woodwork.
The Audio Challenge
Leaders at Hope Center sought a modern audio solution that could accommodate weddings, community gatherings, corporate events, and cultural celebrations while remaining visually unobtrusive. AVDOXA was tasked with designing and installing a sound system that would deliver professional-grade audio without compromising the building's historic character.
Transforming the former Annunciation Catholic Church required meticulous care to honor its cultural and historical significance for Kansas City's East Side. The 43-foot vaulted ceiling, plaster walls, stained-glass windows, and ornate crown molding presented substantial acoustic challenges, as the reflective surfaces could create echoes, feedback, and uneven coverage.
The venue’s vision was ambitious: host everything from intimate gatherings to large-scale celebrations. Each type of event has different audio requirements, making both consistent sound quality and configurability essential. Beyond technical performance, the
solution had to respect the building’s historic character, remaining visually unobtrusive.
The Hope Center and AVDOXA identified three primary challenge areas that would shape the audio solution:
Structural limitations: Weight restrictions in the century-old structure prevented traditional, heavy audio installations and required careful planning to avoid damaging historic materials.
Acoustic complexity: Hard plaster walls and vaulted ceilings created significant reverberation. “Everything is a hard surface that just reverberates sound,” noted Blaise Bollinger, AV Systems Engineer at AVDOXA. “But fortunately, with the design and working with Jon Taylor, we were able to minimize that through speaker placement.”
Aesthetic integration: The audio solution needed to complement the vaulted ceilings, stained-glass windows, restored woodwork, and ornate crown molding. “When you walk into the space, you’re immediately struck by the size of the ceiling. The one thing you’d hate to do is clutter it with a series of speakers,” explained Bollinger.
The Solutions
AVDOXA designed a system that balanced versatility, simplicity, and power. Blaze Audio was chosen as the sole provider of amplification and loudspeakers, offering a minimalist solution that reduced weight and visual impact while providing comprehensive coverage. “With a competitive system, we would have had twice the number of speakers in the main array and two stacked subs, resulting in 15 feet of speakers. The CCA and CBL speakers allowed us to cover more with less” Bollinger said.
Key system components:
- 3 × CCA10i constant curvature arrays: Provide broad, even coverage across
the sanctuary, ensuring balanced audio from front to back. - 3 × CBL528 constant beamwidth loudspeakers: Deliver focused, precise sound to specific areas while minimizing reflections from stained-glass windows and hard surfaces.
- 1 × BL218SSi super subwoofer: Adds depth and richness to music and multimedia presentations without muddiness.
- 4 × PowerZone Connect Dante-enabled DSP amplifiers: Enable efficient power delivery, flexible configuration, precise acoustic tuning, remote management, and seamless integration of main and delay speakers.
AVDOXA carefully positioned delay speakers halfway back in the sanctuary to complement the main array above the stage. Using the Dante-enabled amplifiers, the team tuned the delays, so attendees perceive all sound as originating from the mains. “You don’t even notice that the delays are putting out any sound unless you mute those amp channels and just leave the delay on, which was a really nice touch,” Bollinger explained.
The PowerZone Connect DSP interface also simplified system management. said Bollinger. This ease of operation allows staff and event organizers to configure the system quickly for diverse events without specialized technical knowledge.
“The amps were extremely easy to troubleshoot and navigate. The Dante interface was seamless, and the GUI is simple enough for anyone who has ever EQ’ed before to just get in and get started,”
- Blaise Bollinger, System Engineer, AVDOXA
Outcome
The Gathering successfully preserves the church’s historic character while offering a premium audio experience for events of all kinds. Strategic placement of loudspeakers ensures complete coverage with no dead zones, managing the sanctuary’s challenging acoustics for clear speech and rich musical reproduction.
The system’s discreet integration keeps the vaulted ceiling, stained-glass windows, and ornate woodwork as the visual focus. Guests enjoy exceptional sound quality without noticing the equipment. Staff and event organizers praise the system’s versatility and ease of operation, which adapts seamlessly to diverse events without complex reconfiguration.
By combining modern audio technology with historic preservation, The Gathering now provides Kansas City’s East Side with a premium community venue. Exceptional sound enhances every event while maintaining the intimate, historic atmosphere of this landmark space—demonstrating that innovation and preservation can coexist beautifully.
