Your Drone Show

Process timeline

How a show moves from brief to blackout

Every display runs through the same rough order, whether it is thirty aircraft over a vineyard or three hundred over a stadium precinct. The dates below are the ones that have held up across our own gigs, and the notes are what tends to go sideways at each stage.

  1. Week 1 to 2

    Site survey and airspace check

    We walk the launch area, measure the corridor against the nearest structure, and pull the CAA Part 101 requirements for that specific volume. Harbour fronts and enclosed stadiums read very differently here, mostly because of who can legally stand underneath the display.

  2. Week 3 to 5

    Choreography in Blender and Skybrush

    Blockout first, then the real timeline. This is where transitions get re-timed, offsets get nudged, and the sequence is checked against the actual launch grid rather than an idealised one. Most of the rework happens here, not on site.

  3. Week 6

    Paperwork, RF scan and battery rotation

    Documents go to the venue, the municipality and the insurer in that order. In parallel we run a spectrum scan at the site, pick channels, and build the battery rotation so no pack is asked to fly twice without a proper cool-down.

  4. Show week

    Rehearsal, then the real thing

    A full rehearsal at the same hour as the show, because a 06:00 run tells you nothing about a 20:00 crowd. Wind windows get logged, firmware quirks get written down, and the backup ground station stays powered until the last aircraft lands.

  5. After the show

    Teardown notes and cost review

    Pack-down, battery logs, and an honest look at what the gig actually cost to run. Those notes feed straight back into the next quote, which is why a corporate activation and a festival slot rarely land in the same bracket.

How a show gets built

From first email to the night the fleet goes up

Every display follows roughly the same path, whether it is thirty drones over a vineyard or three hundred over a stadium precinct. The order matters more than the speed. Here is how the work actually moves, and where the schedule usually gets tight.

  1. Step 01

    Brief and site read

    We start with the venue, the audience position and the flight volume. A marquee directly under the path, a harbour wall, or a narrow launch corridor changes the whole sequence. This is also where the pyro-free comparison gets settled, honestly.

  2. Step 02

    Airspace and paperwork

    CAA Part 101 submissions, geofencing, venue safety sign-off and the insurer's questions. Lead times here set the real deadline, not the event date. Stadium shows add the municipality and sometimes a broadcast RF window.

  3. Step 03

    Choreography in Skybrush

    Blockout in Blender, then the timeline in Skybrush. Timing offsets get tuned against the music, and transitions are re-cut after rehearsal when drones arrive early or late at their waypoints.

  4. Step 04

    RF scan and battery plan

    A spectrum scan before the crowd arrives, channel choice, and a rotation schedule that keeps every aircraft within its cycle. Ground station placement relative to the audience matters as much as its line to the fleet.

  5. Step 05

    Rehearsal and teardown

    A full run at the venue where possible, with the backup laptop on the table. After the show we log firmware quirks, prop wash on windy coastal nights, and anything that needs fixing before the next booking.

  6. Step 06

    Debrief and next steps

    What the client asked for afterwards, what we would price differently, and what the next fleet size needs. Scaling past a hundred units is a planning problem before it is a flying one.

Working through this for the first time? The field notes in the wedding show teardown and the stadium paperwork walkthrough cover the two ends of that range.

What the process gives you

Five things that decide whether a show flies clean

Every stage below exists because something went wrong once. The order matters more than the individual steps, and the handovers between them are where most first-time operators lose a night.

Your Drone Show process

A 30-aircraft sequence mid-show, Cape Winelands.

Sequence design before hardware

Blockout in Blender, timing offsets in Skybrush, then a rehearsal export. If the transitions only work on paper, they will not survive a launch corridor that is two metres narrower than the site plan suggested.

Airspace and paperwork in order

CAA Part 101 sits at the bottom of the stack, not the top. Venue safety officers, municipal notices and insurer clauses each add lead time, and they do not accept each other's documents.

RF plan built from a real scan

A clean 06:00 rehearsal tells you almost nothing about 20:00. We scan the site with the crowd present, pick the channel from what is actually occupied, and place the ground station accordingly.

Battery rotation that holds

Charge, cool, log, swap. A fleet grounded mid-show because two packs were cycled one too many times is a scheduling failure, not a hardware one.

Teardown notes that feed the next show

Firmware quirks, prop wash on coastal nights, the transition that arrived a second early. Everything gets written down while it is still annoying, and that log is what makes the second show cheaper to run than the first.

Read the wedding show teardown / Walk us through your site

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