Verity Studios and TikTok bring 88 costumed drones to the 2019 CCTV New Year’s Gala

ZURICH– February 6, 2019 – Verity Studios AG, the global leader in indoor drone systems, and Keey Media, a leading smart entertainment company in China, announced today that 88 VerityStudios drones were chosen to feature in the CCTV New Year’s Gala. 

The CCTV (China Central Television) New Year’s Gala is the world’s most-watched TV program.This event was broadcast live to an estimated 1 billion viewers across the globe. With 88 Lucie®micro drones flying over performers in red Chinese lantern costumes, this is the largest number of costumed drones ever seen in a performance. 

Sponsored by TikTok, a leading social media platform in Asia, the show opens to “The Distance ofTime”, sung by popular singer Sun Nan and up-and-coming pop star Jason Zhang. As the song builds, 88 Lucie micro drones fly from the back of the stage like butterflies to dance above the 50 performers dressed as blossoming cherry trees. 

“This stunning performance proves how compelling drones can be. More than just flying lights,we’ve shown that costumes can transform this technology into moving sculptures. This is the firstlarge-scale performance ever done with drone costumes,” said Raffaello D’Andrea, founder ofVerity and co-founder of Amazon Robotics. 

The Chinese lantern costumes adorning the Lucie micro drones were all designed and produced by the world’s only drone costume designer and Verity employee, Léa Pereyre. Pereyre creates the costume design in CAD software before laser-cutting the materials and assembling the costumes. The drones feature special guards that have pre-defined slots to easily attach costume elements. This concept makes it easy to quickly create large numbers of costumes and transform drones into moving pieces of scenography, props and even characters.