Project Type
Concert (Arena/Theater, primary venue capacity under 20,000)
The project was a song-specific drone show integrated into Will Smith’s live concert at Budapest Park on 14 August 2025. Designed for “Men in Black”, approximately 400 drones extended the performance into the night sky, culminating in a UFO formation visually aligned with the stage from the audience’s perspective.
Project Name
Will Smith "Men In Black" Live Drone Show Integration
The drone show sequence formed part of the live concert experience for approximately 10,000 attendees and created a distinctive visual moment visible beyond the venue.
Budapest Park was the concert organizer and venue partner. Visual Europe Group coordinated the technical delivery and live-show integration, with GYÁR Post Production developing the creative drone content.
Design Criteria
The assignment was to create a drone sequence for Will Smith’s live concert at Budapest Park that would operate as part of the performance rather than as a separate aerial attraction.
The brief had two objectives: to create a distinctive visual moment for the approximately 10,000 people attending the concert, and to extend the visibility of the Budapest tour stop beyond the venue through a strong, media-ready image.
The sequence was developed specifically for “Men in Black” and designed around the song’s musical structure and theme. The creative approach was to extend the visual environment of the concert beyond the physical stage, using the night sky as an additional performance space.
The central image was a UFO formation appearing during the song. This created a direct narrative connection between the aerial choreography and “Men in Black”, while providing a visual that remained immediately recognizable even when viewed from outside the concert venue.
The sequence also had to be incorporated into an existing touring production without disrupting the established show flow. The aerial choreography therefore had to function as a precisely timed live-show element, coordinated with the stage performance and the operational requirements of the drone flight.
Project Description
The drone show was performed during “Men in Black” as an integrated section of the concert. A fleet of approximately 400 drones created a sequence of aerial formations, culminating in the UFO image above the Budapest Park area.
The choreography was programmed around the structure and rhythm of the song. The drone pilot initiated the sequence manually against the production timecode, monitored remotely from the technical control position, allowing the aerial sequence to start at the required point in the live performance.
A major factor in the design was the available flight area. Regulations did not permit drone operation above the audience or inhabited areas. The fleet therefore launched from an adjacent uninhabited location rather than directly from the concert site.
This constraint directly informed the scale and geometry of the choreography. The formations were positioned and dimensioned around the audience sightline so that, when viewed from inside Budapest Park, the UFO appeared visually aligned with the stage despite the actual flight zone being located away from the spectators.
The same solution also supported the communication objective of the brief. Because of the formation’s scale and elevation, the UFO was visible from several parts of Budapest. Its unexpected appearance above the city generated spontaneous online attention, including discussion and memes referring to an apparent UFO sighting, extending awareness of the concert beyond the audience inside the venue.
Approximately 10,000 people attended the concert, and the previous project documentation identifies the drone sequence as one of the production’s most memorable visual elements.
Challenges and Solutions
The primary production constraint was time. Visual Europe Group received the request only five days before the concert.
Drone productions of this type normally require substantially more lead time. Airspace and site-use approvals alone may require up to 30 days. In this case, an existing permit associated with Budapest Park could be transferred to the project, making it possible to complete the regulatory process within the available production window.
The compressed schedule meant that creative development, programming, permitting, simulation and operational preparation could not follow a conventional sequential workflow. These processes had to run in parallel, with continuous coordination between the teams responsible for the creative, technical and flight-related aspects of the production. The original project documentation likewise records parallel creative design, technical programming, permitting and simulation.
The second major challenge was spatial. Because the drones could not fly above the audience or inhabited areas, the show could not simply be positioned directly over the stage. The flight zone, take-off location and visual composition therefore had to be designed together.
The solution was to use an adjacent uninhabited area and calculate the formation around the spectators’ viewing angle. The UFO appeared to occupy the airspace above the performance from inside Budapest Park, while the drone fleet remained outside the restricted audience area.
The third challenge was maintaining a clear relationship between the aerial content and the artist’s performance. Rather than designing a generic drone spectacle, the imagery was developed specifically around the song. The UFO formation directly referenced the narrative world of “Men in Black”, extending the visual composition from the physical stage into the night sky.
The project was delivered within the five-day production window and integrated into the concert for approximately 10,000 attendees. The final solution combined song-specific aerial design, live-performance timing and sightline-based flight planning, while also fulfilling the brief to create a visual moment capable of generating attention beyond the concert venue.
Photo credit: Visual Europe Group
Equipment
Drone system: Approx. 400-drone aerial fleet; choreography programmed for up to 440 drones
Synchronization / timing reference: Production timecode, remotely monitored by the drone pilot from the technical control position
Flight-control setup: Manual show initiation by the drone pilot against production timecode
Launch configuration: Remote launch from an adjacent uninhabited flight area
Team
On-stage artist, credited separately: Will Smith
Visual Europe Group – Technical production, project coordination, permitting, flight-operation coordination and integration of the drone sequence into the live concert.
GYÁR Post Production – Creative content development for the song-specific aerial sequence.
Budapest Park – Concert organization, venue coordination and support with the existing permit and adjacent flight area.
Drone pilot and flight-operation team – Flight preparation, operational monitoring and manual initiation of the programmed sequence against the production timecode.
Concert technical production team – Coordination of the aerial sequence with the stage performance and provision of the production timing reference.