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AudioFetch Blog Header - Church Drive In Is Here to Stay

Drive-In Church is Here to Stay

By | Churches | No Comments

As many regions are relaxing stay-at-home guidelines, and businesses and organizations around the world are beginning to reopen, people are eager to resume their pre-quarantine activities. Yet, coronavirus cases are on the rise again, and many groups are wary of jumping in too quickly, putting the community at greater risk and extending the pandemic. 

We talk with numerous businesses and organizations around the world each day, and have found varying levels of confidence in reopening. But there’s one group that, across the board, we’ve found is more skeptical of going back to “normal”–houses of worship. There are several reasons for their apprehension.

No One Knows When It WIll Be Safe

While the CDC has provided specific considerations for faith-based organizations, they’re not crystal clear guidelines. These instructions are left to the discretion of local and state authorities, and quite frankly, it’s all over the place and frequently changing. 

Our only hope for certainty of safety is a vaccine. And while early trials have been positive, there’s no real fixed timeline. And again, reports are all over the place and frequently changing. 

With so many mixed reports and uncertainty, and with the health and safety of their community on the line, houses of worship are playing it safe and continuing to host drive-in services.

Safety and Community are Imperative 

A primary goal of any house of worship is to create a warm and caring fellowship for members. 

That’s where coming together, supporting each other and ensuring the health and safety of all members is so important. No church wants to be in the position that Lighthouse Pentecostal Church in Union County, Oregon found themselves in last month–responsible for 236 coronavirus cases, the state’s largest outbreak.  

Playing it safe and taking the right precautions to protect members is the right thing to do until we have a better handle on this pandemic. 

Even if a church decides to hold services indoors, there are still some members that should not be exposing themselves to such risks. Seniors, people with pre-existing medical conditions, immunosuppressed–these church members can feel left out or even shunned if they’re unable to attend services with their family and peers. For these individuals, offering an outdoor option along with indoor services can provide safer and more inclusive environments that are necessary in our current state. 

This tool allows you to calculate your risk of contracting coronavirus based on age and various medical conditions. And the results are alarming. Sure, a person under 40 with no medical conditions is at very low risk–less than 1% age-specific fatality and comorbidity rate. But start upping that age range, and tacking on pre-existing conditions, and the rates begin to soar. 

For all of these reasons, we believe that drive-in church services are here to stay for the foreseeable future. And why not?  Providing outdoor drive in services exclusively or concurrent with indoor services just makes sense to protect the most vulnerable of the flock.

If you are interested in hosting drive-in services at your house of worship, our drive-in audio technology can help you create a safer, more inclusive environment. Order our FM transmitter or contact us to discuss your options. 

AudioFetch Blog Header - Social Distance Tour

6 Types of Social Distancing Tours

By | Tour Guides, Travel | No Comments

After being locked indoors for several months, staring at screens for entertainment, people are itching to get out of the house and experience something in real life. Yet, travelers are still concerned about their health and safety. While some people are venturing out in wider areas, they remain cautious of the places they’re visiting and the people they’re interacting with. 

To help assuage travelers’ safety concerns and provide the necessary precautions, travel and tourism brands are leveraging our AudioFetch wireless audio streaming technology. 

AudioFetch helps create extra space for social distancing by allowing attendees to hear the guide via their smartphone, rather than crowding around in a group. And since they’re using their own smartphone, not a device provided to them by the tour, it limits the number of surfaces that individuals come into contact with (and limits the items the tour company has to sanitize after each tour!). 

Since lockdown restrictions began lifting earlier this summer, we’ve worked with numerous travel and tourism brands to help them create social distance tours. Some of the unique uses we’ve found are:

Factory Tours

Whether they’re for educational, entertainment or inspection purposes, factory tours can be made safer and more enjoyable with a wireless tour guide system. Not only does the system eliminate the need to provide devices that must be sanitized, it allows all attendees to remain six feet apart and still hear the tour guide. 

City Tours

Even traveling down the street can seem like a major adventure these days. And that’s why local city tours have been a hot trend this summer. Tours Accolde is using AudioFetch to provide guided walking tours in Quebec City and Lévis, Canada, showing off the local history, architecture, culture and lifestyle. 

Brewery Tours

This is a big one in our home state of Colorado! Breweries big and small run tours of their facilities for a sneak peek into the machinery and processes required for a perfect pint. Just like factories, breweries can be loud places that make it difficult for tour guides to hear and be heard. Our technology allows anyone with a smartphone to hear, AND to maintain a safe social distance. 

Garden Tours

Outdoor destinations have been deemed a safer alternative to indoor destinations, and many travel spots are beefing up their outdoor garden tours to provide this option. Whether it’s botanic gardens that are limiting tours to only their outdoor attractions, or indoor tours that are making the typically overlooked garden portion the main event. 

Architecture Tours

New River Architecture offers waterway cruises using electric-powered boats to guide visitors through the architecture and landscape of Fort Lauderdale, the “Venice of America.” Using AudioFetch and the open air venue, New River Architecture will provide a safer alternative to indoor tours. 

College Campus Tours

Prospective students and freshmen are typically treated to a campus-wide tour of all the new facilities they can visit. These tours can still take place by using wireless tour guide technology that permits people to keep a safe distance, while still hearing the every word the tour guide says. 

If you have questions about how AudioFetch allows you to run tours more responsibly with our tour guide system app, people do not hesitate to contact us. We look forward to helping you get your tour business back up and running, and doing so in the safest way possible.

AudioFetch Blog Header - Creative Drive-In Events

Drive-Ins: Not Just for Movies Anymore

By | Drive-in Audio | No Comments

Drive-ins are the hot trend this summer thanks to COVID-19 and the need for social distancing restrictions. And while the drive-in concept is certainly nothing new, we’re seeing people and organizations get creative with their use of wireless audio streaming technology to provide safer entertainment options, bring communities together and support national and local talent. 

Following are five creative uses of the drive-in concept for non-film entertainment:

Drive-in Comedy Shows

While gathering indoors in large groups may be forbidden, there are no restrictions on laughter. Let’s face it, we could also use some chuckles right now (even if only to cover up the tears!). 

So we’re encouraged to see comedians and comedy organizations pushing on with drive-in comedy shows. North Miami Beach transformed their parking lot into a comedy club last weekend for “The Big Screen Comedy Drive-In Show,” featuring local hilarious acts such as El Caballo, Cisco Duran and Gene Harding. 

Drive-In Comedy Shows
Image Credit: Pollstar

More well-known comedians are getting in on the drive-in trend, too. The ever-outrageous and -uproarious Burt Kreischer held six drive-in comedy shows earlier this summer, which were so successful, he’s preparing to launch a second leg of the tour. And when we say successful, we mean successful. Those six shows alone grossed more than $400K with nearly 8,000 in attendance! 

Drive-in Drag Shows

After a no-doubt rough week of working from home, you can now see your favorite drag queens werking from a parking lot! 

Drive-In Drag Show
Image Credit: Voss Events Drive’N’Drag

RuPaul’s Drag Race is hosting “Drive-N-Drag” shows in parking lots across the US. The opening show of the tour was held at the Garden State Plaza in Paramus, New Jersey in mid-July. Other Drive-In Drag shows will be held in LA, Chicago, Seattle and DC/Baltimore. 

Drive-In Sports Viewing

Sports teams haven’t taken to the drive-in concept as quickly as other industries, but a few industrious teams are finally getting on board. Like the Chicago Blackhawks hockey team. Fans can drive-in viewing parties in the team’s Schaumburg Boomers Stadium parking lot. 

We hope to see more sports teams following suit with drive-in audio events in the coming weeks. (We’re looking at you Nittany Lions! Sincerely, the PSU alums at AudioFetch!). 

Drive-In Music Festivals 

After every music tour and festival was cancelled earlier this year, we were ready to sit this summer out. Because we all know you can’t have summer without music festivals! Thankfully, some inventive and resilient folks are carrying the tune with drive-in music festivals. 

These festivals are playing out big and small across the globe, catering to just about every music genre and taste you can imagine. 

Drive-In Music Festival
Image credit: Block Club Chicago

On the big scale, there’s the hip hop and R&B focused “Drive-In Fest” at Soldier Field featuring Lloyd, Do or Die and Bobby V. 

On the small scale, there are countless drive-in music festivals and concerts happening at local venues around the world. Check your local events calendars or search for something like “drive-in music near me” to find great options like these in Michigan, Sacramento or Denver.

For a little bit of the big and the small, there’s Garth Brooks, whose concert was streamed to 300+ drive-in theaters in small towns across the US. 

Drive-In Discos

It should probably come as no surprise that Germany pioneered the concept of the Drive-In Disco. The first large events were hosted by Club Index, a family-run nightclub in the small German town Schüttorf, throughout May. Since then, Drive-In Discos, Drive-In Dance Parties, and Drive-In Raves have been popping up in the parking lots of nightclubs and stadiums around the globe. 

Drive-In Disco in Germany
Image Credit: New York Times

If you’re interested in hosting any type of drive-in event, we can help with your audio sound system! If you’d like to broadcast audio to car radios, we’ve got you covered with our FM Transmitter.

If you’re looking for a more modern solution, our AudioFetch wireless audio streaming products broadcast audio to listener’s smartphones for an efficient, affordable and innovative drive-in event! Contact us today