Our project “Stage above the City (Oder nad mestom)” is running from September 2025 to September 2026, and it marks a defining chapter in how we are building the future of drone light shows in Slovenia and the wider region. This support means a lot – not just financially, but as a recognition that what we are doing matters.
Drone shows are not a gimmick. They are a new form of visual storytelling, a cleaner alternative to fireworks, and a genuinely exciting medium for events, culture, and experiential marketing. Having the Ministry of Culture and the European Cohesion Policy behind us validates exactly that.
What is "Stage above the city" project?
At its core, “Stage above the City (Oder nad mestom)” is about professionalizing and scaling Skydance into a leading drone light show provider in Slovenia, Croatia, and the broader Central European region. The project covers everything from technology development and fleet expansion to team growth and market entry.
But rather than walk you through a list of objectives, we want to give you a real behind-the-scenes look at what we are actually working on right now.
Building Our Visual Element Library
One of the most exciting and most technically demanding parts of this project is the creation of our internal library of 3D visual elements and choreographic formations.
If you have ever wondered how a drone show comes together, here is the short version: each drone in the swarm is pre-programmed to fly a specific path, at a specific time, in a specific colour. The “shapes” you see in the sky like a heart, a logo or a moving wave are choreographed sequences of hundreds of individual flight paths.
Until now, every show we have produced has been built largely from scratch. That is creative and deeply satisfying, but it is also slow and resource-intensive. The library we are building changes that.
We are developing a collection of 50 to 70 modular 3D elements: formations, transitions, colour patterns, and animated sequences, that can be combined, adapted, and reused across different shows. Think of it as a vocabulary of visual language that we can compose into new stories quickly and efficiently.
This work involves our software specialist Aljaž, who is developing and optimising the programming tools that underpin each choreography, and our creative director Jan, who shapes the dramaturgical logic behind every element – making sure they do not just look good individually, but tell coherent visual stories when combined.
Developing the Technical Tools Behind the Shows
Alongside the library, we are investing in the internal tools and processes that make production faster, safer, and more repeatable.
This includes refining our pre-flight simulation environments so we can test full choreographies virtually before a single drone leaves the ground, improving our colour calibration and synchronisation workflows, and building out internal documentation and operational manuals that allow the whole team to work from a shared, reliable standard.
We are also working with our drone fleet’s software ecosystem to improve how quickly we can scale a choreography up or down — for example, adapting a show designed for 150 drones to run with 75, or expanding it to 250, without rebuilding the entire sequence.
This kind of infrastructure work is invisible to audiences, but it is what makes the difference between a company that can do one great show and a company that can do thirty of them a year, consistently, at a high level.
Why This All Matters: Sustainability and Cultural Impact
Drone shows are often introduced as a “fireworks replacement,” and while that is true, it undersells the bigger picture. Fireworks are noisy, polluting, stressful for animals, and leave chemical residue in the environment. A 10-minute drone show with 50 units consumes approximately 0.55 kWh of electricity — roughly equivalent to a short tumble dryer cycle.
But beyond the environmental argument, drone shows represent something genuinely new in visual culture: a programmable, reusable, infinitely adaptable medium for storytelling in the sky. Every show we create is authored — it has a dramaturgy, a narrative arc, music and sound design woven into it. That is what sets Skydance apart from providers who offer generic, template-based sequences.
By building this creative infrastructure through the “Oder nad mestom” project, we are not just growing a business. We are establishing a new creative practice in Slovenia and demonstrating what responsible, innovative cultural entrepreneurship can look like.
A Word of Gratitude!
We want to sincerely thank the Slovenian Ministry of Culture and the European Union, European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) under the European Cohesion Policy 2021–2027 for their support of this project. This co-financing is part of the EU’s commitment to strengthening the growth and competitiveness of small and medium-sized enterprises and supporting the creative and cultural industries.
We are also grateful to Center za kreativnost (CzK) for the mentorship and support that is part of this programme. Their expertise in helping creative start-ups navigate the early stages of commercialisation is invaluable.
What Comes Next?
Over the coming months, we will be sharing updates from inside the project — new show recaps, behind-the-scenes looks at how we build choreographies, and reflections on what it takes to bring drone shows to a new market.
If you are an event organiser, festival director, municipal team, or brand looking for something that has never been seen in this region before, we would love to talk.
Project “Stage above the City (Oder nad mestom)” is co-financed by the Republic of Slovenia and the European Union under the European Cohesion Policy 2021–2027 (ERDF). The project is part of the public call JR-CZK-2025, implemented by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia and the Platform Center za kreativnost.
