A fleet of 201 drones will grace the sky over Logan Park tomorrow as part of a Matariki Drone Light Show organised by the New Zealand International Science Festival (NZISF).
The event will begin at 5.30pm and includes a night market with food trucks and live entertainment.
The drone show begins at 6.30pm and will run for 10 minutes.
The previous largest drone show had 200 drones, and was held in the FMG Stadium Waikato, Hamilton in March this year.
"Hopefully there’s heaps more shows, these drones will be here for any more shows anyone wants to have around New Zealand."
The artwork for the show was created by Kāi Tahu creative storytellers Kitty Brown and Kirsten Parkinson, with music by taoka pūoro performer Alistair Fraser.
NZISF director Jerome Cousins said the drone show had been a long time in the making.
"We had postponements and setbacks, and we are really happy it finally happened."
The event was possible due to Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment funding for the event in 2022, however due to drone shows being a never-before-seen novelty at the time, permits had not even been created to grant.
He said the show now had all the approval it needed, but MBIE staff said the funding had to be used by the end of June, which meant it could not be used to open the NZISF event on July 10-14.
"When looking at the calendar we said ‘oh my goodness, there is the Matariki weekend’, how thematically linked are the stars and these drones in the sky? We thought we could help create something beautiful."
The Dunedin City Council also jumped on board and organised their night market, food trucks and live entertainment in conjunction with the drone show.
The event is free and Mr Cousins encouraged Dunedin residents to bring along their picnic blankets to watch the sky light up.
