Source : Perth Now news
A prominent festival has cancelled drone shows, citing public safety, after dozens of devices plummeted into a harbour during a performance.
The Star-Bound show at Vivid Sydney was canned during Monday night’s staging after 89 drones fell into Darling Harbour.
No spectators were harmed, and a Vivid spokesperson said no drones landed outside a designated exclusion zone.
Organisers initially scrapped the Tuesday and Wednesday performances to allow for a review, but announced on Saturday all further drone shows would be cancelled.
“Public safety will always remain the highest priority and all decisions have been guided by expert technical and regulatory advice,” a spokesperson said.
“Providing certainty for visitors, residents and event attendees as Vivid Sydney continues over the coming weeks has also been an important consideration in making this decision.”
Firework displays will replace the drone shows.
Organisers said they had begun fishing the drones out of Darling Harbour after Monday night’s calamity.
SKYMAGIC, which was running the performance and markets itself as the world’s leading drone light show company, said its pilots and crew handled the situation perfectly.
”The root cause of the issue was an unforeseen change in the radio frequency environment occurring after take-off,” a spokesperson said.
”This anomaly caused a number of drones in the fleet to enact failsafe landing procedures in response to compromised positional accuracy.”
Now in its 16th year, Vivid won Australian Event of the Year in 2025.
