Throughout the world, communities are gearing up for their holiday traditions.  During this season of lights, many towns and cities offer holiday light festivals.  One town in Southern California is continuing their annual Christmas lights and holiday market tradition, but adding a special event to delight audiences.  This year Solvang, CA will be holding a holiday drone show.  Founded by a group of Danish travelers in 1911 in the Santa Ynez Valley, Solvang has continued to embrace it’s Danish roots.  The city is known for it’s Danish architecture and cultural inspirations.  Solvang’s Danish festivals bring in millions of tourists and it has become known as the Danish capital of America.  Each December, the town is decorated with thousands of twinkling Christmas lights for the annual Christmas Market Light Show and Julefest Candlelight Tours.  Visiting Solvang during this time of year it is impossible not to feel like you are being transported into a Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale.  This year promises to be even more spectacular as the city adds some modern flair to their old world charm with a drone show called Aurora Dronealis.

The event is set to take place Saturday, December 21st at 6PM and is being hosted by the city of Solvang, the Solvang Rotary Club, and the Santa Ynez Valley.  The event is being produced by IDK Events, with the drones and choreography piloted by Firefly.  Scott Shuemake of IDK Events said that with this event, “We want to establish Solvang as the Christmas destination in California.”  And with the growing popularity of drone shows, this event could definitely do that for the town.  Many communities are turning to drones to replace firework displays, especially in regions that are prone to wildfires.  Drone shows go a long way to help the environment.  They create zero emissions or noise pollution, a major issue with firework shows.  A drone show lasts just about as long as a firework show, around 10-15 minutes, but a drone show is noticeably less expensive to put on.  A typical firework show can cost around $100,000 while the Aurora Dronealis show will be setting the city of Slovang back only $50,000. 

Firefly Drone Shows are one of the premier companies in the world putting on these fantastical drone shows.  Operating out of Auburn Hills, MI since 2017, Firefly has been amazing audiences around the world with drone shows.  As stated on their website, “Firefly provides an immersive experience that takes our client’s events and brands to new heights.  One of the only FAA licensed companies in the world, Firefly offers the latest technology operated by the most experienced pilots.”  The small drones used for the show are synchronized to perform a dance that creates magical images in the sky, identifiable from the multi colored LED lights on the drones.  Each drone is lightweight with protected blades, so if one were to malfunction and crash it wouldn’t cause any damage.  That being said, each drone is also equipped with safety redundancy measures to prevent any malfunctions.  Kyle Dorosz, the company’s founder and CEO said, “We’ve developed our own process. We build our own drones. We use some of our own software. It’s a very closed solution: We’ve built it for our purpose.”  These are in no way off the shelf drones that would be unreliable for the magnitude of the performance Firefly puts on.

So what can viewers expect to see at the Aurora Dronealis?  Well if the name of the show is any indication they could be treated to images that invoke the feeling of witnessing the Aurora Borealis, the majestic northern lights that grace the skies of our world’s Northern Hemisphere each year.  There is sure to be Christmas favorites like Santa Clause, his reindeer, Christmas trees, candy canes, and snowflakes.  There may even be some frolicking polar animals.  All of it will be choreographed to accompanying music sure to prompt some spontaneous sing a-longs.  But unlike a fireworks presentation, “The drone show is very sustainable and doesn’t produce any noise,” said Solvang Mayor Ryan Toussaint.

General admission tickets for the show are available for $15, with VIP seats (the first five rows) for $100.  Ticketed seats will give viewers the best advantage to see the show and hear the music, but they are not necessary to enjoy the display.  The drone show, made up of 100 drones flying 100-400ft in the air, will be visible to anyone within a five mile radius for free!  But, for someone really into drones there is a VIP Experience package for $500 that includes front row seats, a meet and great with the drone pilot, and a chance to examine the drones first hand.

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