Sky Elements, one of the world’s largest drone light show companies, has launched the Drone Light Show Alliance (DLSA) — a professional organization designed to provide drone show operators with unified safety standards, training resources, and a forum for transparent incident analysis.
Sky Elements is a leader in drone shows, having been the team behind major shows like that 5,000-drone show in Vegas in late December to promote “Stranger Things.” Sky Elements also made it all the way to America’s Got Talent finals, earning the third place spot on AGT Season 19.
But the company has also faced major challenges. The launch of DLSA comes just over a year after the December 2024 Lake Eola Park incident that sent a 7-year-old boy to the hospital for emergency heart surgery in a show put on by Sky Elements. But now in 2026, Sky Elements is spearheading an industry-wide effort to establish safety baselines that apply regardless of which drones or software operators use.
“A cornerstone of the DLSA is going to be promoting safety openly,” Preston Ward, Chief Pilot at Sky Elements, said in a statement announcing the group. “The drone show industry seems to be developing a pattern of manufacturers weaponizing safety as a selling point rather than an industry trying to better itself through safety and accountability from the members. The DLSA seeks to change this. Safety is not proprietary, nor should it be treated as such.”
DLSA and its potential to shape drone safety standards
The problems the DLSA aims to solve
From Disney’s elaborate Disneyland Paris spectaculars to celebrations to ring in the New Year and even my wedding drone show, the drone light show industry is quite literally booming. But Ward says the industry lacks the infrastructure to support that growth safely.
“The drone show industry is still new and rapidly evolving,” Ward said in an interview with The Drone Girl. “Unfortunately, operators — whether new or experienced — have had limited access to unified guidance, best practices, or peer learning when challenges arise. The DLSA seeks to change that.”
Ward noted his own experience getting into the drone light show space years ago, acknowledging how new drone light show companies might be feeling now.
“When we first entered the space, training and resources were fragmented at best,” he said. “We recognized the industry needed a central place where operators could improve their capabilities, receive expert guidance, and access continuing education.
Drone show incident analysis to learn from failures
One of the DLSA’s core functions will be analyzing drone show incidents worldwide and facilitating transparent discussions about what went wrong and how to prevent similar failures.
“Currently, when an incident occurs, the industry lacks a forum for collective discussion and learning,” Ward said. “By creating that space for industry-wide awareness and shared knowledge, we make the entire industry stronger and more resilient.”
“Without a dedicated forum, the operator and others never have the opportunity to understand what contributed to that decision — whether it was due to training gaps, inadequate safety procedures, equipment limitations, or inadequate pilot preparation,” he said. “That’s the real-time learning opportunity we’re creating.”
Complementing, not competing with ASTM
The DLSA isn’t the only organization working on drone show standards. ASTM International has an active committee developing manufacturer-focused standards for drone show systems. Perhaps not coincidentally, Ward serves on that committee.
“I see them as complementary,” Ward said. “The ASTM standards focus primarily on what manufacturers should design and build into their systems. The DLSA standards are intended to fill in the operational and practical details that manufacturers’ standards don’t address — specifically, how end-user operators should conduct drone shows safely and responsibly.”
And for what it’s worth, the DLSA is evolving into much more than a standards organization.
“We’re building a comprehensive resource hub that will provide training, operational support, regulatory assistance, safety discussions, and member certification,” Ward said.
Then there’s also just the speed issue. ASTM (and perhaps rightly so) operates at a slow speed. After all, any standards ASTM sets are widely used in things like technical specifications, guides and classification, where heavy research is warranted.
“ASTM is still in the early drafting phases, and final published standards are likely several years away,” Ward said. “The industry needed guidance now. Operators are conducting shows today, and they deserve access to best practices and peer-reviewed standards right now, not years from now when ASTM publishes.”
The goal is for ASTM to establish baseline manufacturer expectations while DLSA equips operators to apply those tools effectively in real-world conditions.
The Lake Eola shadow
It’s impossible to discuss the DLSA without addressing the December 21, 2024 incident at Lake Eola Park in Orlando, where several Sky Elements drones malfunctioned during a holiday show. Drones collided mid-air and fell into the crowd, with one striking a 7-year-old in the chest.
The NTSB’s preliminary report revealed a cascade of failures: five drones failed to accept launch data before the show, a “soft reboot” appeared to resolve issues but didn’t, drones didn’t lift uniformly at launch, and critically — a 7-degree misalignment of the show center placed the geo-fence dangerously close to the crowd.
The pilot in charge decided to let the show continue rather than abort, believing it was safer for the audience to allow the drones to complete their programmed paths and land. In hindsight, it was the wrong call.
The incident had immediate consequences. The FAA temporarily suspended Sky Elements’ waiver for multi-drone night operations. Theme parks in Orlando canceled their drone shows, no matter the producer. Cities across the country canceled upcoming Sky Elements shows.
The boy’s family filed a sweeping lawsuit against Sky Elements, the City of Orlando, drone manufacturer UVify and flight control software developer SPH Engineering.
Ward was not able to comment directly on the show due to the ongoing NTSB investigation, but added that “I can share that it accelerated our focus on critical safety design decisions.”
And since then, Sky Elements has made dramatic changes to its operations and technology. Its new systems are designed to safely power down and de-energize a drone instantly if conditions warrant it.
“Since last year, Sky Elements has completely redesigned our flight command software and has conducted over 1,000 drone light shows without incident,” Ward reports.
Sky Elements has shared these redesigned standards and procedures with the NTSB, which “provided valuable feedback that helped shape our final protocols,” according to Ward. “This collaborative approach with regulatory bodies is precisely what the DLSA is designed to encourage across the industry.”
Sky Elements has also received FAA approval for an updated waiver incorporating what the DLSA calls a “Tier 1 System” standard. Under this waiver, when using a Tier 1 System, the second Part 107 certificate holder can conduct verification checks remotely rather than being physically on-site.
Sky Elements’ custom Sky Command Ground Control System meets Tier 1 requirements, while competitor Drone Show Software (DSS) meets Tier 2 requirements under the DLSA’s framework.
Making safety widespread — not proprietary
One of the reasons to create DLSA is to unify safety standards, not frame them as proprietary.
“The industry is also at a point where different manufacturers are communicating about safety in ways that sometimes reflect their specific design choices rather than universal safety principles,” he says. “Our goal is to establish a neutral ground where all drone show providers, regardless of platform, can discuss what actually drives safety outcomes and establish standard baselines everyone can follow and build upon.”
In this current state of the industry, drone manufacturers often tout proprietary safety features as competitive advantages rather than sharing best practices that could improve safety across all platforms.
For example, UVify’s IFO drones (which Sky Elements uses) have specific safety features. Verge Aero’s X7 drones have different ones. Firefly’s system has its own approach, as does Lumenier with its ARORA drone. Manufacturers often claim their system is the safest, but there’s no independent baseline to evaluate those claims against.
The DLSA aims to change that by creating platform-agnostic safety standards that all operators can implement regardless of which hardware and software they’re flying.
How the DLSA will work
Sky Elements is funding all organizational costs for the first year of operation. Beginning in year two, membership dues will be assessed based on organizational size, similar to the structure used by the American Pyrotechnics Association.
The DLSA has already published its first set of standards, which are publicly available. Additionally, the organization will provide DLSA members with:
- Training and continuing education for operators
- Operational support and regulatory assistance
- Member certification programs
- Incident analysis and transparent safety discussions
- A forum for peer learning and problem-solving
Another one of the DLSA’s goals is to help standardize the wildly inconsistent requirements across different operators’ FAA waivers.
“Right now, every operator receives different parameters because each waiver is essentially custom-built based on the information an individual provider submitted in their application,” Ward explains. “Since the industry is relatively new, there has been no common reference point for operators or the FAA to default to.”
He points to visual observer requirements as a glaring example.
“I’ve seen approvals allowing anywhere from one visual observer per 25 drones up to one per 500 drones. When Sky Elements conducts a 5,000-drone show, we operate under one set of observer requirements, while another provider conducting the same size show might operate under dramatically different parameters.”
Influencing nationwide drone light show regulation
Ward is explicit about the DLSA’s regulatory ambitions.
“That’s absolutely the hope,” he said in reference to whether DLSA standards could influence nationwide drone show regulation. “In an ideal scenario, all providers would be operating from the same rulebook, making it easier for clients to understand what they’re booking and for regulators to enforce consistent safety standards.”
If the DLSA succeeds in gaining widespread adoption (and that does largely hinge on whether Sky Elements competitors, which are other major drone light show companies, join), the FAA may eventually reference DLSA standards in waiver approvals or even incorporate them into formal rulemaking. That would give the industry significant influence over its own regulatory future.
“Drone shows are safer than ever, and operators are more committed to safety than the industry has ever been,” he says. “The DLSA is accelerating that trajectory by ensuring all providers — regardless of equipment platform — have access to the same resources, best practices, and peer learning that make safe operations the standard, not the exception.”
A previous version of this article inaccurately represented a mention of another drone show company, Verge Aero. This article has since been corrected and the mention removed.
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