10,500 Drones Light Up Vietnam Skyline In Sync’d Show, But There Were Issues …

May 6, 2025 by Dave Haynes

I’m not sure drone shows belong in the digital signage bucket, but I’m also not sure anyone should care about that. What is not subject to much debate is that synchronized swarms of drones can put on very large and impressive shows that put messaging up at epic scale in public places.

Consider this show run recently in the skies skies over Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, using some 10,500 drones to mark the 50th anniversary of National Reunification and the end of the Vietnam war.

The scale of this is remarkable, but it didn’t go off without issues. While reports suggest a rehearsal show went fine, a subsequent rehearsal has issues with signal interference, with drones coming down and landing among viewers. It was termed a fail and a disaster, but the coverage suggests it was more like a big glitch. The things weren’t dropping on people like missiles.

This is one shot of the drones prepped and lined up.

This video digs technically into what happened …

And here’s another video …