How Tokyo’s drone show spectacular took flight

How did almost two thousand drones light up the sky to create a spectacular better than fireworks? the idea for a done show began down under

The drone show was the true highlight of the Tokyo 2020 opening ceremony

1,824 drones formed the shape of the world 175m in the air.

The shapes kept rotating and shifting against each other, and some turned bright blue

Millions of us, across the world were transfixed as the drones rotated just like Planet Earth. 

It was breathtaking and was quite literally the turning point that made most of us believe in the Olympics again.

Did you know Australia was behind the whole light show?

Back in 2019 the country was burning through a devastating black summer, so instead of having sparking flames in the air AKA fireworks, drone light shows became the answer.

They can be fully customised to create anything imaginable, even to John Lennon’s song ‘imagine’ like we saw in Tokyo.

To perform a drone show, multiple quadcopters coordinate to fly in programmed, preset patterns, tracing out shapes in the sky that are often choreographed to music.

After a few test runs, the lightweight drones in Tokyo were all controlled by a team of just 15 people.

In a perfect performance – trained pilots, animators and programmers manoeuvred the high-tech equipment.

With the man behind the idea describing the drone spectacular as “an amazing feat of technology.”

“A lot of the story really came from the creative talents here in Japan, and then we collaborated on best ways to integrate the drones into the overall story,” Intel Olympic and Paralympic general manager Rick Echevarria said.

Will fireworks be replaced in the next few years as this emerging technology gains a sky hold?