{"id":21009,"date":"2026-05-27T01:11:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T01:11:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/sydney-light-show-cancelled-after-drones-malfunction-and-fall-into-water\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T01:11:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T01:11:07","slug":"sydney-light-show-cancelled-after-drones-malfunction-and-fall-into-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/sydney-light-show-cancelled-after-drones-malfunction-and-fall-into-water\/","title":{"rendered":"Sydney light show cancelled after drones malfunction and fall into water"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Almost 90 drones plunged from the sky and into the waters of Sydney’s Darling Harbour on Monday (May 25), forcing the cancellation of a light show. <\/p>\n

The drone show was one of the highlights at Vivid Sydney, an annual three-week festival taking place from May 22 to June 13, and it had reportedly been lauded as the “biggest” in the event’s history.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, things went awry during the new aerial spectacle on Monday.<\/p>\n

Titled Star Bound, the showcase featuring 1,000 drones was slated to transform Cockle Bay — the wharf area in Darling Harbour — every Sunday to Wednesday night across 22 shows. <\/p>\n

Instead, numerous onlookers watched on Monday evening as dozens of drones broke from their stunning double helix formation, before flickering and plummeting into the waters. <\/p>\n

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@asiaone Shooting stars? ? Nope, just malfunctioning drones. #australia #sydney #drones #sydneylightshow ♬ original sound – AsiaOne<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Bystanders expressed their confusion online in various footage of Monday’s show, uncertain if the glitch was part of the 12-minute display.<\/p>\n

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“[The] sound of [the drones] crashing on the wharf was considerable even from probably 10 to 15 or 20 metres away,” a Darling Harbour worker named Robert was quoted by national broadcaster ABC as saying. <\/p>\n

Drone show organiser Skymagic told BBC news that a “technical issue” caused 89 drones to land in the water.<\/p>\n

The operator said in a statement to 10 News Sydney that the issue was caused by an “unforeseen change in the radio frequency” environment after takeoff. <\/p>\n

“This anomaly caused a number of drones in the fleet to enact failsafe landing procedures in response to compromised positional accuracy,” said Skymagic.<\/p>\n

Dyfan Rhys, Skymagic’s head of operations and production, added that “[early] indications show there was no foul play present” but they are still investigating all possibilities. <\/p>\n

He emphasised that none of the drones fell outside the demarcated safety boundaries.<\/p>\n

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A Vivid Sydney spokesperson apologised for the “disappointment and inconvenience caused to attendees” as the drone operator had to cancel the show “in line with standard safety protocols”. <\/p>\n

The upcoming light shows on May 26 and 27 have also been cancelled. <\/p>\n

Vivid Sydney said Skymagic and the relevant government agencies will conduct a full assessment before making a decision on whether the remaining scheduled shows will proceed.<\/p>\n

[[nid:736711]]<\/p>\n

laili.abdeen@asiaone.com<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Sydney light show cancelled after drones malfunction and fall into water<\/sub><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Almost 90 drones plunged from the sky and into the waters of Sydney’s Darling Harbour on Monday (May 25), forcing the cancellation of a light show.  The drone show was one of the highlights at Vivid Sydney, an annual three-week festival taking place from May 22 to June 13, and it had reportedly been lauded…<\/p>\n

Read More “Sydney light show cancelled after drones malfunction and fall into water”<\/span> »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21010,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21009\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}