Colorado Takes Its 150th Anniversary Celebration to New Heights with Stories in the Sky

Tom Dolan loves drones and has been flying them for nearly twenty years. But it took a 2022 Imagine Dragons concert at Dick Sporting Goods Park to turn that passion into a business. “They put on this phenomenal fireworks display during the concert. It was so cool,” Dolan remembers. When he emerged from the show, though, “the whole field behind Dick’s was on fire. I was like, ‘There has to be a better way.'”

Turns out, there is. And Colorado was thirsting for a more environmentally-friendly outdoor light show. After the Imagine Dragons concert, Dolan started his drone show company, Brightflight, with modest plans to create shows for weddings and small corporate events. “But we quickly learned that Colorado was really wanting a premier drone show company,” Dolan says. “So as the demand increased, we increased our fleet. We fly 95 percent of our shows right here in Colorado. We’re quickly growing. We went from me and six to eight part-time employees; now we have three full-time employees and thirty part-time employees.”

The drones themselves cost $1,000 each, and Brightflight has more than 800 of them, most stored in the company’s office and warehouse space about five miles north of downtown Denver.

Brightflight flies Denver’s annual July 3 Indy Eve drone show, has done shows for the Broncos and the Avalanche, has created halftime shows for CU and CSU and, most recently, was responsible for Visit Denver’s Mile High Holidays drone show — 41 nights of holiday-themed drone animations visible over downtown and other parts of central Denver from November 21 to December 31.

It was a big mission, and now Dolan and his team are part of an even bigger one: Brightflight was chosen to create more than forty unique drone shows across the state this year to tell the story of Colorado for the CO150 celebration marking Colorado’s 150th birthday and the nation’s 250th.

Stories in the Sky is one of twelve signature initiatives developed by the America 250 – Colorado 150 Commission, including 150 oral histories, new historic markers, statewide storytelling, a digital Colorado passport and more. The first show is set for January 22 during Ouray’s Ice Festival; subsequent displays will go everywhere from Steamboat Springs and Estes Park to Denver and La Junta.

“The Stories in the Sky statewide series combines storytelling, Colorado-themed visuals and dazzling technology to honor our history, landscapes and culture,” says Timothy Wolfe, America 250-Colorado 150 commission co-chair and Colorado Tourism Office director. “Family-friendly and shareable, these shows let Coloradans experience a unique, memorable celebration while uniting communities across the state in this once-in-a-lifetime commemoration.”

Since drone shows are still relatively new, Dolan recognizes that these CO150 displays will be the first time many people will experience a drone show, and he wants to demonstrate just what drones have to offer. “We’re massively proud,” he says.

National drone companies also bid for the job, but it only made sense to choose a Colorado outfit for shows celebrating Colorado. “Versus some of these national companies that I know they received bids from, we had that unique advantage of being here in Colorado,” Dolan says. “And we’ve worked with a handful of these cities, communities and events already, so we have really great pre-established relationships.”

Which is good, because after getting FAA airspace authorizations, permits and other logistics out of the way, Brightflight works with officials and event organizers in each locale to figure out exactly what kind of stories in the sky it wants to tell. Every ten-minute CO150 drone show is comprised of a fleet of 500 drones and starts with a general history of Colorado — beginning with the dinosaurs and moving to indigenous heritage, coal and silver mining, and the creation of Union Station — but each location also gets two minutes of customized local content. “It could be long animations where they’re telling a detailed story about their town, or it could be small things they want to highlight,” Dolan says.

Brightflight Head of Multimedia Design Chris Probst has the task of creating the animations, typically starting with a line drawing and then bringing it into a 3D animation through a computer program. Not only does he have to take into account how certain colors will appear in a dark sky, but Brightflight is also required to keep its drones ten feet apart and moving no faster than 15 miles per hour, which means in many cases, Probst has to program the colors to make the animation appear as if it’s moving fast, even if the drones aren’t. “The main thing we wanted to do with our animations was make sure there’s enough movement and light effects to keep the viewer interested and excited,” Probst says.

“People always ask me what’s the hardest part of drone shows, and 100 percent of the time, it’s this,” Dolan adds. “Flying the shows is the easy part. The hard part is here.” When the animations are complete, the drones are programmed, and the team performs a test run at a site in Broomfield to make sure that the colors look right in the sky.

While wind and wet weather are always a concern, another one is keeping people away from the launch perimeter. “At some shows, we’re going to be launching right next to where the event is, and like flies to a light, people want to get as close as they can to drone shows, even though that’s looking straight up, so it’s not the best experience,” Dolan says. To avoid that, Brightflight has about ten employees on site to aid each show’s two pilots by setting a perimeter and doing crowd control.

In addition to sustainability and little fire risk, drone shows have another environmental benefit: minimal noise. “Even from where we are as pilots and crew, it really just sounds like a fan on high,” Dolan explains. “But if you’re several hundred feet away, as most of our audiences are, you can’t hear the drones at all.”

But one of the best things about drones is their ability to tell a story. “Fireworks are a lot of colors and noises, but with drones, we can really hone in on what the event is trying to do and what they’re trying to say,” Probst says.

“Five hundred pixels in the sky gives us a really great canvas to pull off whatever we’re trying to do,” Dolan agrees.

And with Stories in the Sky, they’re trying to instill a sense of pride in Coloradans. “We want people to be proud they live in Colorado, that they’re from Colorado,” concludes Dolan. “We want people to have that warm and fuzzy feeling that this is their hometown.”

It all kicks off Thursday, January 22, at the Ouray Ice Festival. See the schedule of CO150 drone shows here.