Vivid Sydney drone shows cancelled for now after malfunction saw 89 drones fall into the harbour

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-05-26/technical-issues-force-cancellation-vivid-drone-show-monday/106721200

In short:

Vivid Sydney festival's drone show has been cancelled for now after a technical malfunction on Monday night.

The drone show's operator says a change in radio frequency caused 89 drones to fall into the harbour around Cockle Bay.

What's next?

A Vivid Sydney spokesperson says Tuesday and Wednesday's drone shows will not go ahead, with no decision yet made for Sunday's show.

22 points · 8 comments · view on lemmy.world

8 Comments

arbilp3@aussie.zone · 4 pts · 91d

A bit creepy that they started falling while portraying DNA.

No1@aussie.zone · 3 pts · 91d (1 reply)

I think I'd like to hear @SenatorCollins@aussie.zone response to this.

SenatorCollins@aussie.zone · 5 pts · 90d

Well, there are a lot of these shows going on around the world all the time, and very seldom does anything like this happen. I just don’t want people thinking that drones aren’t safe.

makingStuffForFun@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 91d

Did they fish them out? That's a lot of pollution

Baggie@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 90d (3 replies)

I've always questioned how they co-ordinate these things to prevent situations like this.

I guess the answer is they don't?

Dimand@aussie.zone · 2 pts · 89d (2 replies)

It's possibly cheaper to just buy new drones instead of making software that only has a chance of them returning home without rtk GPS.

The general rule with drones is it's safer for them to fall out of the sky when something goes wrong.

Baggie@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 89d (1 reply)

I mean the article made it sound like drones nearly hit people, idk about the safer part.

Dimand@aussie.zone · 2 pts · 89d

Oh it's still an issue formaure. But falling on someone is usually considered safer than flying into them with props powered on.