Drone show to illuminate sky at Baltimore's New Year's Eve Celebration
BALTIMORE - The countdown is on to another one of Charm City's beloved holiday events, the annual New Year's Eve celebration.
WJZ is the proud media sponsor of the event.
This year, Baltimore's Office of Promotion and the Arts is introducing an exciting new element to the traditional fireworks display: A custom-designed drone show choreographed by renowned global event company Image Engineering.
The same company will also be doing the fireworks over the Inner Harbor.
Caroline Foreback went to their headquarters in Curtis Bay for an inside look at the preparations.
It's a meticulous job that takes a lot of skill.
"You really have to respect what the products can do," Fireworks engineer Richard Snader said.
Snader has plenty of experience.
"Since 1979," he said.
At Image Engineering's warehouse in Curtis Bay, he carefully wires the fireworks that will launch Baltimore City into the New Year in just a few days.
"These are called mines, they're going to be on the front of the barge," said Snader. "When you hit fire, the controller takes over everything and starts telling each pin to shoot."
The process takes two to three hours.
"There's a lot of hard work in it," Snader said.
On the other end of the warehouse, Phillip Keller is working hard on a new element of Baltimore's New Year's Eve celebration.
"A lot of time setting up, calibrating, making sure everything is talking to the satellites correctly," said Keller.
As the senior technical director and drone manager, Keller is responsible for making sure the drone show goes off without a hitch.
"Programming it in a software that is basically choreographing a ballet in the sky making sure the drones know what to do and not running into each other is the big part," said Keller. "The actual show itself is just hitting play and watching it go."
"We are going to fly about 250 on New Year's Eve," Michaela O'Gallagher, with Image's creative services, said. "They have light diodes on the bottom, so we fly them at night and it makes a really spectacular show."
O'Gallagher said they've been working with Baltimore's Office of Promotion and the Arts for the past couple of months to incorporate this new high-tech display with the traditional fireworks show.
"We've been designing the show and preparing a soundtrack to go along with it and we're really excited," O'Gallagher said.
The drones will be illuminating the skies over the Harbor like never before.
"A drone show in real life is really mesmerizing and it's really quite large in the sky. It's about the size of a fireworks show," said O'Gallagher. "So just be ready to see something spectacular."
The celebration kicks off with live music at the Inner Harbor Amphitheatre beginning at 8 p.m.
