UPDATED 16th of June
The final Love Is In The Air drone show at Vivid Sydney 2024 – Humanity has been cancelled. It will not be rescheduled due to the event ending tonight.
Drones are highly vulnerable in rain as well as wind of 28 kilometres per hour (km/h) or higher. The Bureau Of Meteorology Terrey Hills radar picked up a “significant” rain/wind “cell approaching”, which the drone show provider, the Australian Traffic Network, concluded would arrive at 9:10pm, the same time as the start of the drone show. Despite forecasts of south-westerly winds at speeds of 17km/h, the approaching cell must have contained minimum 28km/h winds. They then made the decision to cancel “to ensure the safety of the public” around 8:15pm, with Vivid Sydney announcing it at 8:43pm.
Whilst official online posts referred to “forecasted weather conditions”, screens at the event said “inclement weather”.
We’re obviously monitoring the, the weather all the way through yesterday, yesterday: late afternoon & we’ve got, you know, a team of 10 pilots who would have been full operating, full time operations running, running our drone light show so it was about 8:15 last night our Pilot In Command had to make that difficult but critical decision to cancel the final drone show last night that was scheduled for 9:10. The decision was driven by pilot experience, forecasted rains & continuous monitoring of the Bureau Of Meteorology for 2.5 hours before the planned launch. During this period, we tracked a significant weather cell approaching, expected to coincide with our flight time.
The primary reason for this decision was to ensure the safety of the public. The risk of launching drones in such conditions was too great. Flying in poor weather conditions could lead to drone malfunctions or collisions, posing significant safety hazards to the audience.
The potential for malfunction or loss of control in adverse weather conditions presented an unacceptable risk. The Pilot In Command made his best judgement call for the safety & protection of everyone involved.
We fully understand the disappointment this has caused but the wellbeing of the audience & adherence to safety standards must always come first. We are grateful for the opportunity to be part of Vivid Sydney 2024.
We had 2 amazing drone shows last weekend. We’re as disappointed as everybody else but I’m, I’m, I’m, um, I’m happy that I’m talking at this point at not launching them and having a malfunction.
Vic Lorusso, Australian Traffic Network Chief Executive Officer
Sydney Spectaculars saw the Bureau Of Meteorology rain radar last night & while there was a significant band of rain off the coast, which is likely the cell the Australian Traffic Network saw, the speed at which it was travelling, in our opinion, would not have allowed it to reach Circular Quay by the scheduled end time of the drone show, which might explain why a lot of spectators thought the cancellation was odd in, to them, otherwise fine conditions: The speed of the approaching rain/wind band may have been overestimated by Australian Traffic Network. The 27-minute delay in communication from the Pilot in Command to Vivid Sydney event management to the general public also did not help.
Other than the fact it was the event’s final night, it was not postponed to a later hour as Circular Quay needed to re-open to marine traffic.
Whilst crowds were anticipated to be a third down on last Saturday & Circular Quay has a capacity of around 70,000, 167,000 people were probably affected by tonight’s cancellation.
Unfortunately, due to inclement weather, the Vivid Sydney drone show will not proceed this evening. The show will not be rescheduled, as tonight marks the conclusion of Vivid Sydney 2024. We apologise for the inconvenience & thank you for understanding. Please be patient when exiting.
We’re very disappointed that our final drone show was cancelled. Drone operation is very sensitive & the shows are weather dependent. Public safety is paramount & ‘Vivid Sydney’ follows the direction and advice of the specialist operators of the drones.
Vivid Sydney
In response to a question put by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation to Vivid Sydney at 6:30pm about whether the drone show would proceed, organisers said:
We’re all set.
Vivid Sydney
The Love Is In The Air drone show was controversially scheduled for only 3 drone shows despite 7 highly popular drone shows featuring in last year’s edition of Vivid Sydney. The 1st drone show this year was marred by 2 near-crowd crushes around Circular Quay affecting around 94,000 people out of a crowd of a quarter of a million people. Now, the 3rd show has been cancelled, resulting in only 2 drone shows being held this year in a 23-night event.
Drone shows are very hard to book & there is a shortage of barges currently in New South Wales. Therefore, the limited number of drone shows might have been due to the availability of both drone shows & barges to host them from.
The next day (Sunday 16th of June), the New South Wales (NSW) Premier, Chris Minns, acknowledged that families and children would have been disappointed but said the late notice by Vivid Sydney had nothing to do with “inconveniencing” people:
I am really sorry about last night. A lot of families & a lot of kids were looking forward to it so it’s deeply regrettable & I’m sincerely sorry for it. Uh, the decision was made by the, the drone operator & it was completely weather dependent. They made the call as late as possible not to inconvenience families but to actually see whether they could go ahead with the program in any event. Unfortunately, that wasn’t possible.
I know families are doing it really tough at the moment & the free entertainment that comes about as a result of Vivid & the drone show is welcome because it means you can take your kids and family out & it doesn’t cost anything to see it.
We are determined to see more of that in Sydney particularly over the next 12 months. This one didn’t go ahead but there will be many more opportunities in the months & years ahead.
Chris Minns, NSW Premier
He then spoke on last Saturday’s near-crowd crushes:
Last Saturday’s crowd was not good. Mistakes were made. I think there was an under-appreciation of how many people would go out there.
To give the organisers credit, they did a major walkthrough the next morning. No one tried to, I guess sort of, um, sweep it under the rug. They did a huge walkthrough with Police, emergency services & Vivid organisers. As a result of that, there were more road closures.
We are a major city. We should be able to accommodate hundreds of thousands of people even close to a million people on our foreshores. We have done that for the fireworks.
Our job is to communicate for the best way for people to have fun & enjoy it. I am confident that we have learnt the lessons notwithstanding the fact that last Saturday wasn’t great.
Chris Minns, NSW Premier
Gill Minervini, ‘Vivid Sydney’ 2024 – ‘Humanity‘ Director spoke on both topics:
You know, over 2 million people from Sydney & around the world came, uh, to what is the biggest event in Australia & you know, it was fantastic.
I can’t lie it’s, its, you know, a show about love & I was heartbroken.
We will be reviewing all of our plans in, including drone plans &, & crowd management.
Gill Minervini, ‘Vivid Sydney’ 2024 – ‘Humanity‘ Director
Sydney Spectaculars 