Attendees at Monday’s Vivid Sydney’s Star-Bound show in Australia got quite a surprise when almost 90 drones fell into Darling Harbour during the light show performance.
Organizers of the annual three-week festival said the catastrophic failure of so many drones was due to “unforeseen technical difficulties.” The firm behind the performance, Skymagic, claimed that none of the drones fell outside of safety limits and attributed the issue to a shift in radio frequency.
“No vehicle escaped the safety boundary of the show parameters. Some vehicles during the emergency landing phase encountered the geofence boundary and shut down to preserve the safety zone resulting in them falling into the water,” said Skymagic.
Dozens of drones falling from the night sky during Monday’s performance were recorded by attendees, leaving onlookers perplexed and, in some cases, “sent people running.”
“Everything seemed normal and then very shortly after that first image was displayed, on the southern side of Cockle Bay you started seeing drones dropping in the water and then from there it was a cascading failure of the drones,” a Darling Harbour worker told the ABC.
“The sound of them crashing on the wharf was considerable even from probably 10 to 15 or 20 meters away; you could hear them physically crash and smash onto the cement marina,” he continued, adding that it was “remarkable no one was hurt.”
Head of Destination NSW, Karen Jones, told 702 ABC Sydney that all the “safety protocols worked” and that was not in jeopardy. Vivid Sydney canceled the drone shows scheduled for the next two nights, pending an investigation into the exact cause of the malfunctions.
“Public safety is always the number one priority and a full assessment is now underway with the specialist operators and relevant government agencies advising on next steps,” a spokesperson for Vivid Sydney told The Independent.