Nearly 100 drones have fallen into a famous harbour during a light show, forcing some future events to be cancelled due to safety risks.
Sydney's Vivid Festival had promised to light up the night sky through its 23-day programme, but technical difficulties forced Monday night's 'Star-Bound' drone show to be cancelled shortly after take-off.
Organisers said 89 drones fell into Darling Harbour, near Sydney's CBD, during the 7.30pm show due to an unplanned change in radio frequencies.
The show was quickly scrapped along with another viewing slated for 9.30pm, with events planned for Tuesday and Wednesday also canned to allow for a review.
A decision is yet to be made on whether the drone show will return on Sunday night and beyond as previously planned.
No spectators were harmed, and a Vivid spokeswoman said no drones landed outside a designated exclusion zone.
''The specialist operators identified a technical issue and made the decision to safely discontinue the show in line with standard safety protocols,'' she said on Tuesday.
''Public safety is always the number-one priority and a full assessment is now underway with the specialist operators and relevant government agencies advising on next steps.''
SKYMAGIC, which was running the performance and markets itself as the world's leading drone light show company, said its pilots and crew handled the situation perfectly.
''The root cause of the issue was an unforeseen change in the radio frequency environment occurring after take-off,'' a spokesperson said.
''This anomaly caused a number of drones in the fleet to enact failsafe landing procedures in response to compromised positional accuracy."
NSW Premier Chris Minns said his government was satisfied with the safety protocols in place.
''If it's a risk or a danger to the community — and this is disappointing for people that want to see the drone show — then they don't go ahead,'' he said.
''We acknowledge and appreciate there's tens of thousands of people that want to see a free event in Sydney ... even the light show absent the drones is spectacular, but if it's in any way a risk to the public then they can't go ahead."
Vivid is into its 16th year and won Australian Event of the Year in 2025.
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