-(upbeat music) -(visitors screaming) [Mike] It's opening night of the Nebraska State Fair.

Fire in the hole!

-(bell clanks) -(whistle trilling) Winner!

[Mike] All the usual stuff.

-(pet hair dryer whirring) -(cows mooing) Then something most have never seen before.

(dramatic thrilling music) 300 drones plus fireworks telling a story in the sky.

(fireworks swishes and crackles) (fireworks popping) -(button clicks) -How does this happen?

(tape whirring) Team is on the road.

[Mike] It starts with a Wiz who's spent a lifetime building things.

I don't care if we're pouring concrete or if we're flying a drone show, we're gonna go have fun every day.

Otherwise, why be here?

[Mike] First thing you need to know about Don Wisnieski is he's Wiz.

Fine with me.

It's easier to say.

He's had a construction company for three decades.

Added curb grinding, insulation, cemetery maintenance, rental houses.

Unbeknownst to me, people call me a big entrepreneur here in Norfolk, and I never thought of it that way because I was just doing what came naturally and doing something more and doing something different.

(fireworks popping) [Mike] He's also been in charge of Norfolk's big 4th of July fireworks show for almost as long.

(fireworks popping) A good fit for a guy who grew up in a farm family that threw big parties and shot off a lot of fireworks on the fourth.

Everybody needs a hobby.

I don't hunt.

I don't fish.

I just blow stuff up, right?

(fireworks bangs and pops) [Mike] One day, the entrepreneur with a passion for creating entertainment in the sky was approached about pivoting to something kinda new.

(drones whirring) So, it's like, "Let's think about getting rid of some of the other stuff and go stay with the fireworks and stay with the drones, and make a real good medium out of this for aerial entertainment."

It just goes hand in hand and it really took off.

-(tense dramatic music) -(drones whirring) [Mike] Fantasy Drone Shows has been all over the country, sometimes two different places on the same night, sometimes with fireworks.

-(fireworks bangs and pops) -(tense dramatic music) Maybe none, so far, bigger than this.

(announcer speaking indistinctly) -(fireworks bangs and pops) -(spectators cheering) (spectators and announcer speaking indistinctly) -(upbeat music) -(fireworks popping) [Mike] Greatest moment so far?

Greatest moment?

[Mike] Mm-hmm.

University of Nebraska, when we did the volleyball game.

-(spectators cheering) -Ah, fireworks!

[Players] Whoo!

(players chanting) -(fireworks bangs and pops) -(upbeat music) What it took to get our foot in the door?

We actually had to kind of go back way around it and get to John Cook, to be honest with you.

We got a rendering in front of him (upbeat music) and my understanding was, his exact words, "That is sick, make it happen."

(upbeat music) (fireworks pops and rattles) (spectators cheering) It was quite nerve-wracking.

You wanna make an impression.

You've got one shot to do that, and if it doesn't go well, then things aren't gonna go well for you.

But if it does, then your phone's gonna start ringing the next day.

So, we made it all happen and everything went well, and the phone's ringing.

Don Wisnieski here.

How are you this fine day?

[Mike] So, how do you make a drone show?

It starts with Wiz talking to the customer.

Now, typically Labor Day is a holiday and that normally goes up to that $350 a drone.

[Mike] Then the rest of the team gets involved, including business manager Jolene, Wiz's wife.

(Jolene laughs) And guys whose previous jobs had nothing to do with drones.

The connection?

They all helped Wiz with fireworks.

[Ben] This goes back to when I was talking about Wiz being detail-oriented.

That Fantasy sticker is crooked, so I gotta fix that.

That's a fancy way of saying OCD.

Nobody's gonna notice it if it's straight, but they will if it's not.

Yep.

It's an image we're after here.

(drones whirring) [Mike] Now, they're going to show us how they do what they do, creating a special show just for us.

(birds chirping) It starts with Brian looking at location and airspace.

(drones whirring) Our show is easy.

It's happening on the acreage that includes the company's building and family home where they've flown shows before.

-(drones whirring) -(gentle music) But using the State Fair show as an example, Brian works with Google Earth on one monitor, a VFR aeronautical map for pilots on another.

We need to think about where people are gonna be and where moving traffic is.

We can't fly over people.

We can't fly over moving traffic.

[Mike] Proximity to airports matters.

Inside the blue dots means inside restricted airspace.

Most of Grand Island is inside of that Class D airspace, so I know I'm gonna need to have airspace authorization for that.

[Mike] Brian also keeps audience experience in mind.

About how far, generally, is sort of the sweet spot?

[Brian] Two city blocks away is ideal.

Like, you really get a good view of the show.

[Mike] Now Scott and his design studio software takeover.

Here's all my coordinates up here.

So, I can change the radius of it.

I can make it bigger or smaller.

I can change how many times it turns, you know, like right now it's on two.

I could put three in there so it gives it more turns.

[Mike] Sometimes adapting things already built, like an American flag.

Sometimes starting from scratch, with a little surprise for our show.

Most shows take a week or so to build -and can last up to 15 minutes.

-(mouse clicking) Scott uses unlimited colors and smooths transitions between images.

The program keeps a safety bubble between drones and provides an accurate look at the show and location where they're flying.

We can kinda tell a story with drones, you know, so it's tying all those images together to make it flow and make it, you know, kinda tell what we wanna tell.

Our show's gonna have four different elements -Correct.

Yes.

-in the story, right?

Yep.

(container clattering) [Mike] Everyone helps with things like packing and prepping the drones.

(drone beeps) How much of your life do you think is spent taking batteries in and out of drones?

A third.

That's the biggest thing with drones is battery management, (drone beeps) 'cause nothing works without power.

(drone whirring) [Mike] As another part of the business, Ben uses drones to record video of things, like acreages and houses for sale.

(drone whirring) That was really freaking close.

[Crew Member] Yeah, but we're good.

(Ben laughs) (fireworks crackles and pops) [Mike] And video of their shows.

-(drones whirring) -(upbeat music) It goes back to being able to market this better in that social media, and utilizing a drone to capture drone light shows is just second nature.

(drones whirring) (door ramp squeaking) What are you doing here?

Right now we're setting up the ground station.

This will be what communicates with the drones, gets the GPS signal from the satellites, sends all that info.

These are the antennas that we use and the interface boxes.

So the signal goes from the computer into the interface box, into the antenna, sends the information out to the drones.

(wheels rattles) [Mike] Time to lay out 200 drones on a grid.

(upbeat electro music) 16 meters right to here.

And there's our four corners.

(upbeat electro music) We put 'em about an inch away from our tape measure that were out there, dead center on a black mark.

Okay.

I'll show you the first one, and then after that, you're on your own.

-Okay.

-We pay weekly.

(Mike laughs) -Very weakly.

-Very weakly.

Bu-dum-bum.

(upbeat electro music) Making a drone show.

(upbeat electro music) Don't step on a drone.

(upbeat electro music) [Videographer] How's your back?

This is hard.

Drones are hard.

Grid's laid out.

-(upbeat electro music) -(insects chirping) Yeah, we're good.

Time sync.

Heading check.

Red is noting that it's not facing true north.

[Mike] How many times have you stepped on a drone doing this?

None.

I have yet to step on a drone and I have size 15 feet.

[Mike] I don't believe you.

I have yet to step on a drone.

All right, 200 to 200.

Ready?

Everybody good to go?

-Yep.

-Yep.

(uplifting music) (whooshing) -(whooshing) -(uplifting music) -(whooshing) -(upbeat uplifting music) [Mike] It hasn't been long since Wiz even saw his first drone show.

(drones whirring) From idea to investing in expensive drones and software, to adding staff equipment and more drones, Fantasy Drone Shows has grown quickly.

It really has taken off almost exactly how I was thinking on day one, if we did this, this and this, this and this and this is gonna happen.

And how are we gonna scale it, when are we gonna scale it accordingly.

(light upbeat music) (visitors chattering) (visitor exclaims and laughs) [Crew Member] Be careful being over the top of those tubes.

(balloon pops) Winner, winner.

-(light upbeat music) -(visitors laughing) [Mike] So what's easier?

Drones or fireworks?

[Crew] Drones.

[Mike] Drones?

(laughs) Less physical work.

(light upbeat music) [Barker] Catch the family fun game, the ring bottle game.

(light upbeat music) (people chattering) (visitor laughing) Three, two, one, go for music.

-(fireworks popping) -(upbeat music) (drones whirring) (whooshing) (upbeat music) You gotta wonder what they're thinking right now.

-Oh, look!

-Cow!

A cow!

A cow.

(upbeat music) [Mike] Talk a little bit about Wiz.

Is Wiz kind of a force of nature?

Wiz is a cool cat.

Keep our heads up.

They are over our heads.

I don't know when the guy sleeps.

He works all the time.

He's thinking all the time about how to make things bigger, better, more efficient, easier on the body so that we have energy to do more.

So he just...

He's Wiz.

(light music) (whooshing) (visitor laughing) -(whooshing) -(light upbeat music) I'm into the finale.

-(fireworks popping) -(light upbeat music) (visitors cheers and applauds) Yeah.

Awesome.

A hundred percent both ways.

That was awesome.

That was probably one of the coolest firework shows, drone shows I've ever seen.

Yeah.

That's pretty cool.

I've never seen anything like that in person before.

Our client.

"That was phenomenal.

I'm already getting tons of messages from people.

Thank you."

-Awesome.

-(crew chuckles) (drones whirring) [Crew Member] That's what we like to hear.

-(drones whirring) -(fireworks popping) You've been doing this for three years and yet you're still giddy about a show.

I know, I know.

(chuckles) Every show, I still have a gut ache before every show too.

Nerves, of course.

Everyone's a high profile show and you want it to go perfect.

Tonight went perfect.

Couldn't ask for a better night.

(relaxing music) [Mike] What hooked you?

I think just the fun and the excitement.

I really like working with drones and new types of technology, but there's also that level of creating something for an audience that really awes them.

There's nothing about this that (chuckles) isn't fun, you know?

(relaxing music) That's what this is all about is entertainment.

It's wowing people.

It's great to hear the oohs and the ahs, and the applause at the end.

You know, they say that if you do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life.

I love doing this.

[Mike] What's in the future?

Maybe shows at national monuments for America 250 celebrations, or shows at the US Capitol or Super Bowl.

Wiz dreams big.

(fireworks popping) [Wiz] I couldn't be having more fun doing this.

This is just great.

(drones whirring) (graphics bleeps and whirs)