UNK TODAY
Saturday, August 24, 2024 | 5
‘We try to tell a story’ Fantasy Drone
Shows to perform at Loper Lot Party
RICK BROWN rick@yardlightmedia.com
KEARNEY — Don Wis- nieski hopes to do more than make pretty pictures in the night sky with the lights from drones. “We try to tell a story,” he said in an interview from his office in Norfolk, where he talked about the company’s next drone show in Kearney. “We’re welcoming students to the community and wel- coming the community to the students. The logos will go up and there will be other things in the night sky.” This new form of enter- tainment has more in com- mon with firework shows, but Wisnieski also sees con- nections with movies — but in 3D. “We can create images in two dimensions, we can do three dimensional images, too,” he said. “Your imagi- nation is your only limita- tion. I come from the world of fireworks. Most drone companies are born out of firework companies because we’re already in the business of aerial entertainment. The customers are asking to add drones to our firework shows.” Wisnieski’s business, Fantasy Drone Shows based in Norfolk, will present a family-friendly drone show as part of Loper Lot Party, 5-9 p.m. Aug. 28 at Hill- top Mall. Admission to the event, open to students and the community, is free. The party will include food trucks, escape rooms, an axe-throwing trailer, miniature golf, bingo, corn-
More than 150 drones will take to the skies near Hilltop Mall during the Loper Lot Party, 5-9 p.m. Aug. 28. Don Wisnieski, owner of Fantasy Drone Shows, considers light shows made my drones as “just the next latest and greatest part of aerial entertainment.” The free event features food, games and activities as a way to welcome students back to Kearney — and introduce community members to students.
“There are no sensors on the drones. We log on to 34 satellites and it’s all driven by flight commands that are communicated to the drones by GPS. They know they need to go to Point A, then go to Point B and when they get to Point B, they may just sit there and do light chases, or they may do part of an ani- mation.” The drones will fly to a height of about 400 feet. A scene might be as large as 200 feet tall by 300 feet wide, giving viewers on the ground a good chance to see the show. Wisnieski likes to start the show about 30
minutes after sundown. “The drones have bright lights, so even with the am- bient light around, you can see the show pretty well,” he said. “In Omaha, we shut down 84th Street and did a show over that. We can’t fly over the top of people and we can’t fly over moving vehicles. If the show is over a busy road, we have to shut down the street. The lights are bright. You can see them even with lights from a park- ing lot.” Wisnieski considers drone shows as “just the next lat- est and greatest part of aerial entertainment.”
PHOTOS COURTESY FANTASY DRONE SHOWS Fantasy Drone Shows based in Norfolk, will present a family-friendly drone show as part of Loper Lot Party, 5-9 p.m. Aug. 28 at Hilltop Mall. Admission to the event, open to students and the community, is free. Read more about the party on PAGE 28.
hole and giant Jenga, Con- nect Four, checkers and Yahtzee, along with other games and activities. Wisnieski plans on using 150 drones during the show. “We might throw in a few extra drones because we have a couple images that require more detail,” he said. “We’re working with pixels in the sky. The more pix- els you have, the better the scene you can make. There will be about 20 different scenes, made by 150 to 180 drones, to create some really cool entertainment options.” The show will include a music track, something Wisnieski calls “an added dimension.” Just managing the batteries takes a lot of planning. Members of Wis- nieski’s staff attended a con- ference presented by Pyro- technics Guild International in Minnesota where a show
was presented with 1,800 drones. “When we start plan- ning a show, we sit down and make up a storyboard because we’re going to tell a story with every show we do,” Wisnieski said. “That helps us dictate how many drones it will take to make the image look good. We can do cool things with 50 drones. Obviously we can do better with 150 of them. The more drones we can use, the crisper and the more detail you can make.” Because the drones move, in addition to emitting col- ored light, the engineers at Fantasy Drone Shows can animate the images in the sky. “We can do about 19,000 different colors,” Wisnieski said. “Each drone has a very bright LED light on the bot- tom that can easily be seen
for six or seven miles. Even the take-off is cool to see. It looks like a swarm of bees leaving the ground, but with lights on them.” Every one of the flight commands gets pro- grammed into the drones. “The drone beside it doesn’t know other drones are there,” Wisnieski said.
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