The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is famous for breaking records. It is home to the world’s biggest mall, the world's tallest tower and the world's biggest water park. So when media giant Disney announced last week that its first theme park in the Middle East will be in the UAE it was inevitable that more records would soon be broken. Few could have imagined how quickly it would work its magic.

Less than 12 hours after Disney dropped the bombshell announcement that its new park will be on Abu Dhabi’s Yas Island it had already broken one of the most prestigious records in the region.

Over the past decade, drone shows have cast a powerful spell on the UAE. Even at the height of summer the country only stays light until just after 7pm which makes night time shows particularly popular. The UAE hasn’t just been captivated by drone displays because they are eyecatching, but also because they are more modern than fireworks as well as being high-tech and environmentally-friendly. This gives a glow to the host country but that's far from their most magic touch.

Drone displays are still a relatively new form of entertainment. The first public show took place in 2012 when art and technology group, Ars Electronica, programmed 49 tiny craft to dance and form shapes during the Futurelab festival in the Austrian city of Linz. They remained a niche form of entertainment over the next three years as only a few shows took place.

That all changed in 2015 when technology titan Intel flew 100 drones over Ahrenlohe Airfield near Hamburg in Germany. It set a new world record and this came to the attention of the UAE.

The country’s economy has been built on oil and gas but it has turned to tourism to diversify its revenue streams as its fossil fuel reserves are running out. The profits from them are being poured into developing world-class resorts, restaurants, malls, museums and theme parks in a bid to attract tourists from all over the world. Doing that requires promotion and few initiatives drive global exposure like setting a new world record.

It explains why Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and many of the five other Emirates which form the UAE, set record after record. So much so indeed that Guinness set up a permanent office in Dubai back in 2013. Initially, all it took to set a new record with a drone display was adding more of the illuminated micro-copters at the heart of the shows. However, as competition between the Emirates, and other countries, became increasingly fierce, the barrier to beat became much higher.

It meant that only the biggest players now stand a chance of taking top honors for hosting the show with the most drones. In turn, this has driven other operators to set more specific records with the Emirate of Ras Al Khaimah organizing the largest aerial image of a seashell formed from multirotor drones at its New Year’s Eve celebration on December 31 last year. Two months later an aviation show in Abu Dhabi set the record for the most fireworks passed through a drone ring in 30 seconds.

In contrast, the announcement of Disney’s first theme park in the Middle East shot for the stars. The afternoon press conference was followed by a spectacular son et lumière show at an evening event which had all the glitz and glamour of a Hollywood premiere.

Celebrities including Naomi Campbell and Gossip Girl's Ed Westwick, looked on as superstar pianist Lang Lang played classic Disney tunes accompanied by a 107-piece orchestra and a 100-voice choir floating on a pontoon on the Arabian Gulf. As if that wasn't enough, the conductor was Grammy Award-winner Steve Sidwell and the songs were belted out by artists including Wicked stage star Kerry Ellis and Sonya Balsara who plays Princess Jasmine in the Broadway version of Aladdin.

Lasers and fountains danced in the background in time to the music as Yas Island’s biggest-ever fireworks display erupted overhead alongside drones. Lots of them.

The display broke the record for the largest drone light show ever staged in the region and it pulled it off in spectacular style. More than 9,000 drones formed a flawless 650-meter replica of Cinderella Castle from Disney’s Magic Kingdom theme park in Orlando. It could be seen from as far as 5 kilometers away and was created in eye-watering detail, right down to the location of the towers and turrets. At the climax of the show, drones formed an arc and lit up one by one to look like the swoosh of a shooting star before the castle below them transformed into the crystalline centerpiece of the upcoming Abu Dhabi park.

"Disney Abu Dhabi is not yet one day old, and already it has staged one of Disney’s all-time best nighttime spectaculars," said Robert Niles, editor of ThemeparkInsider. There is good reason why the show looked so authentic.

The event was directed by Disneyland Paris show director Arnaud Feredj who was behind the award-winning Mickey and the Magician – one of the most breathtaking shows at any Disney park worldwide as this author has reported. Feredj collaborated with three other Disney veterans – Matt Almos – executive creative director at Disney Live Entertainment, Andrew Brothers – technical delivery manager at Disney Live Entertainment, and Omar Kamal – a key figure behind Drawn to Life, Disney’s Cirque du Soleil show in Orlando.

Disneyland Paris was the first of the Mouse’s theme parks to hold regular drone shows and it makes the most of it. So much so indeed that it even has facilities at the resort to record and mix audio for them as show producer Ben Spalding told this author in a report for AV Magazine.

Impressive as the drone displays are at Disneyland Paris, they pale into comparison to the show that Abu Dhabi put on. Disney Tales of Magic, the nightly show currently playing at Disneyland Paris, is understood to have ten times fewer drones than there were in Abu Dhabi. It took more than the wave of a magic wand synchronize them.

The extravaganza in Abu Dhabi was organized by Dubai-based HQ Worldwide Shows (HQWS), the regional leader in its field. HQWS has arranged many of the most high-profile events in the Middle East from state visits by royalty to WWE shows and the opening ceremonies of several Yas Island theme parks. The most notable was the 2023 debut of SeaWorld Abu Dhabi which featured silvery drone-powered dolphins soaring through the air of an indoor plaza as underwater scenes swirled around a 360 degree screen to music played by a live orchestra.

The parks on Yas Island are all funded, owned and operated by government-backed Miral and Disneyland will be no exception. Miral hired HQWS to organize the announcement event and in turn HQWS worked with Lumasky Drone Show, one of the world’s most renowned drone display developers. Founded less than a decade ago, Lumasky now has employs more than 50 staff across offices in India, Malaysia and Dubai

"Lumasky brought together specialists from various fields – most of whom had prior experience working with drones. So rather than Lumasky getting involved with drones, it’s more accurate to say that drones came to us," explains Alex Podobaev, the company's chief marketing officer.

The key to Lumasky’s magic formula is that it develops its own drones. This gives it full control over all aspects of both hardware and software which enables it to create designs that none of its competitors can copy.

"Lumasky is one of the few companies that builds everything from scratch – drones, software, animation pipelines," says Podobaev. "We were the first to create highly detailed giant portraits with drones. We are the only team to use creative take-offs and landings, where the show begins from the ground rather than in the sky.

"We can project scannable QR codes into the sky. We've deployed more drones in a single show than anyone else in the Middle East – and in some cases, the world." It has even created floating LED screens formed from a grid of drones and it doesn't stop there. “We also pioneered interactivity in drone shows, allowing audiences to play games directly on the drone 'screen'.”

The company’s custom-built drones are not available commercially and are designed so that their light-emitting LED panels can be easily modified. "Currently, each drone emits 3,200 lumens, making them the brightest in the Middle East to date," says Podobaev.

Lumasky has arranged more than 200 shows around the world for companies such as McDonalds, Lexus, Hyundai, Nike and Samsung earning it multiple Guinness records. However, despite this experience, Disney's display still posed a challenge.

“The greatest challenge was the extremely tight deadlines and limited testing time. We also needed to create frame-accurate animations for perfect synchronization with the music – this required meticulous coordination and precision.”

All parties involved with the event had to work to a tight timeframe to reduce the risk of leaks. "We worked almost around the clock for a week to perfect the animation," adds Podobaev. "It was critical to consider many details – the size and proportions of the figures, their distance from the audience, the number of drones, and the optimal viewing angles. Final adjustments were made after live test flights."

The display needed to be tested in advance even though the drones created a huge iconic image which could be seen from afar. Podobaev explains that “test shows are a critical part of our process to verify that everything is functioning as expected before the main event. To keep them invisible to the public, we use various strategies – running tests late at night, just before dawn when most people are asleep, or conducting test flights with the lights off. We then evaluate performance using drone log files.”

Remarkably the Lumasky development team consisted of just three highly skilled animators, a director and a creative director. They followed a strict script.

Podobaev says that “the development of the Disney Abu Dhabi drone show involved several crucial phases. First, we met with the director to discuss the overall concept of the project. Then, our animators began by creating static images to visualize the general idea of the show. Once the concept was approved, we added animation, incorporating all the intermediate transitions and visual effects to bring the vision to life.”

Like every Lumasky show, the Disney announcement was simulated in 3D visualization software before a single drone took off. "We use Houdini, enhanced with custom-built plugins developed in-house to speed up our workflow and tailor the tool specifically for drone show design," says Podobaev. “We also use proprietary software for programming and operating our drone shows.”

The Disney son et lumière show still wasn't a walk in a park due to its complexity and the combination of so many different forms of entertainment. “The most complex aspect was integrating the visual and technical elements. We had to carefully calculate drone flight ranges from the launch point, trajectories and their positions relative to pyrotechnic setups – drones can’t operate near active fireworks. It was also essential to determine the maximum viewing distance to ensure both visibility and safety.”

Like every good fairytale, the show had a happy ending and Podobaev says that was his favorite moment. “The magical swoosh was both the most technically demanding and the most visually stunning moment of the show. To achieve it, we used a dedicated group of drones to create a tunnel-like effect, then illuminated them in a sequence that mimicked magical dust. It was one of the most surprising and enchanting elements, adding a real sense of wonder.”

The display doesn't just set a high bar for future shows but for Disneyland Abu Dhabi itself. Possible hints at the future direction of drone displays come from patents filed by Disney over the past few years. One is a system which enables drones to operate huge puppets whilst others are for drones which carry projectors and projection screens. Although the format may change, if Lumasky is in charge there's no doubt that the stars will align.