A great alternative to fireworks, drone light shows turn it up a notch with 100s and even 1000s of light-equipped drones flying around the sky in formation, creating shapes, objects, words, and anything else you could think of.
A swarm of drones has appeared in a magic act by Marco Tempest on Britain’s Got Talent: Unseen, making the drones out to be mind readers. The 15 drones are purportedly able to pick up micro facial expression to guess which number a subject is thinking of.
The skies over Philadelphia lit up earlier this week in an aerial show composed of about 140 brightly lit drones. The drone light show was a tribute to health workers on the frontline of the COVID-19 pandemic.
A lot has been going on recently with the coronavirus and the quarantines around the world. We conducted some shoots to raise awareness about the coronavirus and quarantines, illuminating a single subject with a LumeCube at night.
[Ed. Note: Yes we are aware that the tour will likely/hopefully be cancelled because of the Coronavirus, but after the pandemic ends…]
Yves Aucoin, Celine Dion’s production designer, uses Verity’s micro-drone technology to amaze the public on Celine’s Courage world tour. Verity’s drones are small, very lightweight, and can change colors instantly. These small unmanned aircraft have been used by some of the biggest entertainment names such as Canadian rapper Drake, rock bands like Metallica, and Cirque du Soleil.
While many countries celebrate New Year’s Eve with fireworks, a few are changing it up with drone light shows. Chinese broadcast company CCTV shared a video of what looked like drones on New Year’s Eve, displaying cool graphics and welcoming everyone into 2020. But there was a catch.
We have seen a number of amazing drone light shows here in the US over the last couple of years. Mostly from companies like Intel and Verity Studios. But more recently it seems that the most advanced and animated drone light shows are happening in China. I came across this video earlier today and then I started searching some more and I was positively surprised with what I found. Check out some of these recent videos that show you what can be done with coordinated drone light shows. The figures and animations that are created in the night skies are simply amazing. Who needs fireworks anymore?
eHang, Verity Studios, and Intel are three well-known companies that have used unmanned aircraft to create stunning drone light shows, but they are not the only players in this market. Check out the company Firefly from Detroit that creates the most stunning drone light shows. The shows are highly choreographed, are 100% customizable, and are totally worth watching.
One of the highlights of yesterday’s Super Bowl LIII, at least for drone enthusiasts, was the first-ever live drone light show during the Super Bowl Halftime Show. During the “She Will Be Loved” song from Maroon 5, 150 enhanced Intel Shooting Star drones floated up and over the field in a choreographed performance to the music to form the words “ONE” and “LOVE.” The drones were modified to look like floating lanterns.
You can see more details of the Intel Shooting Star drones in the images below. There’s also a video embedded, in case you missed the halftime event entirely.
Drone light shows are becoming more popular around the world and are often used to replace the traditional fireworks shows. The most recent drone show lit up the sky during the Qatar National Day 2018.
The Christmas Spectacular show with the Rockettes at the Radio City Music Hall in New York is one of those must-see shows during the Holiday season. The show has become an annual tradition for a lot of people and over the many decades of the show’s existence little has changed. For instance, the oldest and perhaps most famous aspect of the show, ‘The Parade of the Wooden Soldiers‘ has been a staple since 1933. For this year, however, the organization behind the Christmas Spectacular show has decided to change things up a little by adding Intel Shooting Star Mini drones to the mix and creating an entire new finale, called ‘Christmas Lights’. See the video below.
Studio Drift showed off their mesmerizing Franchise Freedom drone light show on Tuesday night during Burning Man 2018. You may have heard of Studio Drift before as they performed another drone show in Miami earlier this year in partnership with BMW. For that show as well as the on during Burning Man, 300 of Intel® Shooting Star™ drones were used.
Drones are becoming more popular to bring a new dimension to events. We have seen them being used during large outdoor events, concerts, fashion shows, during a performance of Cirque du Soleil and now also during Drake’s 2018 Aubrey & the Three Migos Tour. The Lucie micro-drones from Swiss company Verity Studios dance with Canadian rapper Drake during the songs Elevate and Look Alive. Elevate, a song on Drake’s new album Scorpion opens with the little drones flying around Drake to create a cloud of lights. During the song Look Alive the drones form a red 3D cross that rotates around the Canadian artist.
To celebrate their 50th anniversary Intel lit up the skies over their Folsom, California facility with a record-breaking 2,018 Shooting Star drones. This is not the first time we have seen Intel put up drones shows. They have done it before at locations such as the Bellagio in Las Vegas, CES, Coachella, Pride, Johannesburg and most famously the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, breaking records along the way. More recently, Intel has been getting competition from Ehang, that held the previous record with a display of 1,374 drones.
Chinese Ehang, a name you may recognize from their flying taxi, just broke the Guinness World Record record for largest drone display with a fleet of 1,374 drones at a Labour Day show in Xi’an, breaking Intel’s previous record of 1,218 drones flown during the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea. During the first rehearsal flight, all went well and Ehang was able to secure the record, however, during the live performance on May 1st signal interference from the audience may have caused some drones to break formation and some even fell out of the sky.
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For the second year in a row, Intel brought their drones to the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. This time it was a live drone show instead of a pre-recorded one. The 420 Shooting Star drones were part of ODESZA’s act last Sunday and flew in a synchronized fashion to create ODESZA’s geometric logo in the sky in a spectacular fashion.
Watching the Olympics is always spectacular with amazing and record-breaking performances from many different athletes. This time around though drones also played an important role during the games. As part of the Opening Ceremony two weeks ago, Intel has a record-breaking 1,218 “Shooting Star” drones in the sky simultaneously, earning them a spot in the Guinness World Records. Now, at the end of the Winter Olympics, Intel had another smaller drone show with 300 unmanned aerial vehicles in the air.
Intel has been showing off its skills in flying swarms of drone yet again. We all have seen their drone show at the Bellagio. Now Intel has taken one hundred tiny drones, that flew as a group, in a coordinated fashion over the crowds, without GPS, inside. If that sounds impressive, well, that is because it is.
We have seen Intel’s ‘Shooting Star’ drones in action before during the Super Bowl, now we are seeing them at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.
