UK Drone Swarm Displays. Done Properly.

The price depends on the number of drones, the location and the creative ambitions for your show. We’ll help you find the right balance between budget and impact, with clear advice on what’s achievable.

When comparing quotes, look at what’s included as well as the drone count. Every Star Symphony show is designed from scratch by our British design studio, giving you creative input into the imagery, animation and storytelling. That freedom goes well beyond personalising a standard show with your name or logo.

Our technology even allows us to make design tweaks on site on the day of the show, a level of flexibility many drone systems don’t offer. Any changes are subject to sufficient time for the necessary checks, but having that capability means we can respond to last-minute creative requests.

Get in touch with your event date, location and ideas, and we’ll put together a tailored quote. If you have a budget in mind, share it with us so we can explore how to make the most of it.

Most drone shows last between 10 and 12 minutes, providing an engaging and memorable experience without losing the audience’s attention. Our drones are capable of flying for longer, and we can create extended performances lasting up to 24 minutes.

We recommend a minimum of 100 drones, with 100 to 200 providing impressive results for many UK events. For larger productions, we’ve worked on shows featuring up to 1,800 drones.

Think of a drone show as a dot-to-dot picture in the sky: each drone adds a point of light, so more drones allow clearer shapes, greater detail and more creative possibilities. Displays using just 20 or 50 drones can create simple patterns, but offer much less scope for recognisable imagery and storytelling.

The design matters just as much as the drone count. Our technology allows us to create a bespoke show around your ideas and theme, rather than limiting you to a pre-designed sequence. If you’re investing in a drone show, choosing enough drones to bring those ideas to life makes all the difference.

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Absolutely. Our drone shows can be fully synchronised to your chosen soundtrack, with the movement and lighting choreographed to the music. The right soundtrack makes a huge difference to how a show feels, building excitement and making the big moments land with real impact.

Our British design studio creates every show in-house, shaping the visuals and music around your ideas. That creative freedom goes far beyond adding your initials to a standard sequence. We can change the imagery, colours and animation to tell your story, right down to a unicorn with pink ears nodding its head if that’s what you have in mind. You get a show designed for you, with the music woven into it from the start.

Yes, in fact we specialise in design. Every show is created from scratch by our British design studio, with everything designed in-house around your ideas and theme. We can bring logos, messages and characters to life in the sky, building them into animated sequences that tell your story.

You have creative input into the whole show, going far beyond adding a name or initials to a pre-designed package. The imagery, colours and animation can all be tailored to you. If you want a penguin in a bow tie proposing to a flamingo, we’re happy to help him pop the question. Our designers will help you explore what’s possible with your chosen drone count and what will look best in the sky.

We can provide 3D video previews by arrangement, giving you a realistic view of how the designs and animations will look in the sky. If you’d like a preview, let us know during the planning stage so we can discuss what’s possible within your show’s scope and production schedule.

The video below, shared on our social media, compares a preview with the live performance so you can see how closely the two match.

Absolutely. Drones and fireworks bring something different to a show, and combining them opens up exciting creative possibilities. Drone animations can tell your story in the sky, with fireworks adding colour, energy and a spectacular finale, all choreographed to the same soundtrack. We also offer pyro drone shows, with drones carrying pyrotechnic effects into the sky for an extra dimension to the performance.

Our directors, Andy and Sean, bring decades of professional fireworks experience through our sister company, Star Fireworks. That understanding of both disciplines helps us design performances where the drones and fireworks work together beautifully.

We can provide the complete show with Star Fireworks or work alongside your chosen fireworks or special effects provider. We regularly fly for other display companies and are equally happy joining an existing production team.

Our drones are designed to operate in a range of weather conditions and can tolerate winds of up to 37 km/h. While severe weather may occasionally require a postponement or cancellation, weather-related disruptions are relatively uncommon.

Drone shows are designed with safety as a top priority. We use professional grade Verge Aero drone technology and follow strict operational and safety procedures to ensure the show is carried out safely. Our experienced team carefully plans every flight around the venue, audience and surrounding environment.

We recommend booking as early as possible, particularly for peak event periods. This allows sufficient time for planning, permissions, creative development, and any custom animation work required for your event.

Working to a tighter deadline? Our in-house design and operations teams mean we can sometimes deliver a fully customised show with as little as 48 hours’ notice, subject to availability, site suitability and permissions. Get in touch to discuss your plans and we’ll let you know what’s possible.

The Star Symphony Flight Operations Team manages the aviation permissions and coordination needed for your show. Depending on the location, this can involve liaison with airports, permission from Air Traffic Control and approval to operate within restricted airspace. We also arrange any required NOTAMs to notify other airspace users of the planned drone show.

Locations near secure or sensitive sites, such as Windsor Castle, can require additional permissions and coordination with the authorities responsible. Our team assesses these requirements early, establishes what’s possible and handles the necessary applications, keeping you informed throughout the process.

The amount of space required depends on the number of drones and the show design. Many clients are surprised by how little space is needed. We assess every venue individually and advise on suitability during the planning process.

They’re not as expensive as you might think! There’s a small additional charge for each pyro drone on top of the standard drone price, including its first pyrotechnic device. You can then add further effects for an additional charge per device.

Each of our pyro drones can fire up to six full-size pyrotechnic cues, packing some serious firepower into a single aircraft. We’ll help you choose the right combination of drones and effects to give your show maximum impact within your budget.

No. The size of the pyrotechnic effects and the directions they can fire make a big difference to what you see in the sky.

Our Star Symphony pyro drones carry up to six full-size pyrotechnic devices, with effects that can be arranged to fire in any direction, including upwards, downwards and outwards at different angles. This directional freedom is called pyro vectoring, and it gives our designers far more creative possibilities than effects that only point downwards.

Imagine a ring of drones with sparkling waterfalls trailing beneath it. Now picture a horizontal ring with the effects firing outwards from its centre, creating an enormous circle of sparks across the sky. Choosing the direction of each effect lets us create very different looks from the same formation.

More devices don’t necessarily mean a more impressive display. Six full-size effects can deliver greater visual impact than eight or twelve smaller ones. It’s the combination of effect size, firing direction and creative design that really makes the difference. 

And you don’t need six effects on every drone to make an impression. Just one effect on each of a dozen or so pyro drones can add a real wow moment and give the next town’s drone show something to live up to.

Safety is central to both our equipment and how we operate. Our Verge Aero pyro system is fully integrated into the drone, so the aircraft and its pyrotechnic firing system communicate directly. If the drone enters a failsafe condition, that integration allows the firing system to be disarmed as part of the aircraft’s safety response.

The onboard communication matters. With a separate, independent firing module, the drone may not be talking to the module, and the module may not be talking to the drone. If the aircraft enters a failsafe condition, you want it to tell the pyro system to disarm immediately. Our integrated system provides that direct communication, keeping the aircraft and its pyrotechnics working together as one system.

The technology is only part of the picture. Our Star Symphony Drone Shows team combines professional drone operations with decades of fireworks experience, supported by careful site assessment, planning and appropriate safety distances. That combination of engineering and operational expertise is how we manage the risks and deliver a spectacular show safely.

Absolutely, when you're trying to design a drone show that has pyrotechnics, obviously you need visualisation. Our designers have a product list built into their design software that allows them to select between different pyro products and actually see what they're going to look like in the environment of your show. We can produce high quality video renders of the full show or parts of the show including drones and highly realistic simulations of the actual pyros going off, to help you visualise how your show will look. If you’d like a preview, just let us know during planning so we can discuss what’s possible within your show’s scope and production schedule.

Creating a drone show takes many of the same skills as 3D character animation. Making a reindeer run across the sky, complete with Rudolph’s glowing red nose, means carefully coordinating the drones’ positions, movements and lighting. It’s specialist work that takes years to master, and providers take different approaches.

Ready-made shows and image libraries

Some systems give operators a library of images and animations to arrange into a show, or complete performances with limited personalisation. This keeps production simple and can help reduce costs, but creative choices may be restricted. Adding your initials might be possible, while changing a character or matching the colours throughout the performance to your company branding or wedding theme may not be.

Shows commissioned from external designers

Providers could also commission a specialist design studio to create a unique performance. This can produce excellent results, but external design fees can add substantially to the price, sometimes by thousands of pounds.

Allowing time for design and revisions is also important. Your designer may be overseas and is unlikely to attend the event, so late changes can be harder to arrange, and you may never get to speak directly with them. It’s worth asking who will design your show, what changes are possible and what’s included in the quote.

The Star Symphony approach

We employ our own full-time designers here in the UK. You can meet them face-to-face and work directly with them throughout the creative process, with a named designer, direct email address and telephone number to discuss your ideas.

During active design sessions, one service we can offer is we can share updates several times a day, allowing you to see the show taking shape and refine the details together. If you need it, we can also arrange for a designer to attend your event, making last-minute adjustments possible where time allows for the necessary checks.

Every Star Symphony show is created in-house around your ideas. That gives you a direct relationship with the people designing your performance and the freedom to shape far more than a name or a logo. The quality of the design is what brings a drone show to life, and it’s at the heart of what we do.