Why 300 drones can beat a 1,000-drone show – Tomáš Barnáš, LumiSway

0:26Tomáš Barnáš: Mm.

0:26Michal Gula: 2D is against my religion. you have, another big business because you have a lot of, free time and, money to spend. So you, you didn't know what to do so you started, another business. So can, can you tell us what, what you do?

0:50Tomáš Barnáš: yeah, so you're pointing to something which shows, right?

0:54Michal Gula: Yeah.

0:56Tomáš Barnáš: yeah. As Michael said, when we're super bored with doing these kind of projects-... so, actually started a, a family business, and, we've created a new company with my wife, focused on, drone shows. So again, drone shows are known in Abu Dhabi, in Dubai, in, in different places, also in Europe. But, when we did the research on the market, and my wife is extremely good in, like, finance and calculations, so she created a business plan and, we just checked, the competition. and for example, in Slovakia there was no company, and then you have like countries around where it's like one, two companies which are doing it. So the, the market is pretty open. And then we've decided to, yeah, invest in, in the, in the drones and start to, yeah, start to, start to play with them and bring the 3D data we do, for the ground or for the space also to-

2:03Michal Gula: Sh- show us something

2:04Tomáš Barnáš: to the air. Yeah, yeah. That was our first show. It was for European City of Culture, and, we've done a drone show on the castle. And, the design of that was made on top of our 3D scan because we digitized that castle before. So here it's like bridging everything. Then we had the data of the castle, we could simulate everything, and we could really, design the experience and make sure nothing is, like, crashing with the castle. And okay, there are some, like, logos, but, we have also another part, which is, yeah. so we had it together with the laser show. The laser show, was done also by, like, a Slovak company which is doing amazing stuff there called, Quant. They're also doing for Burj Khalifa, like, the, the New Year's Eve, lasers. So that's pretty cool. And, again, like I said, like it's just combining like the 3D data. We do animations and bridging all kind of, stuff, what we do also in overhead, then translating into, into these shows. So yeah, kind of a fun project I would say.

3:15Michal Gula: How, how many, how many drones do you have?

3:18Tomáš Barnáš: We have right now, 300 drones, but, once we bought them, we got the possibility to also rent another one from, from the supplier. So we are able to have like 4,000 drones for the drone shows.

3:36Michal Gula: Is it, is it from the technical point of view for you, is it a different, different level of, of the work if you are operating 300 compared to, to 3,000, for example, drones? Like, is it, is it harder or, or basically it's, it's the same just-

3:55Tomáš Barnáš: So, so the operation itself, how you, like, play it, it's the same. The problem is logistics and the space because, let's say our 300 drones, we need maybe 100 square meters to place them somewhere, then they can run. Of course, you need an empty, safe zone underneath the drones, so often we do it above the lake, above the river, or somewhere, like outside of the, the cities or stadiums. But, if you have like 3,000, yeah, then you need 1,000 square meters, and then, then the safety zones and the height and everything. So it's, way more complex. But the design process, it's, actually maybe sometimes even simpler. Sometimes it's actually opposite that when you, when you have the th- like 3,000 drones, it means you have 3,000 pixels. But if you have like, you know, 300 drones, you have 300-

4:56Michal Gula: It's a challenge

4:57Tomáš Barnáš: pixels. And then you have to make a nice picture with 300 pixels. We even forgot what that means, you know? It's like, it's, it's really not, not an easy thing. Uh-

5:08Michal Gula: Last, last time you were working with 300 pixels is it was when you were playing Snake on a Nokia phone.

5:14Tomáš Barnáš: Mm. Th- yeah, that's exactly the point when... And, and you really don't, don't remember that in this way, you know? Like it's just, yeah, it's, it's just hard.

5:23Michal Gula: How difficult it is to, to get all the permissions from, from municipality, from different institutions?

5:31Tomáš Barnáš: yeah, so this is kind of a process where I would say, on one side when you are, like, developing or starting a new business and you, you are thinking about it that, okay, so maybe, it's not that known in your comp- in, in your country or not many companies are really, doing it, means there is no legislation. Maybe there is no infrastructure. Maybe no one is doing it because it's super complex in your country to do it. So that's actually, that's actually like a big challenge because, uh- We didn't have the legislation ready for that, and, it gave us, like, a lot of work. Like, m- my wife was really, like, one year working on it to get the, the, all the permissions, get all the systems, and all the, the contacts for, the, the right people who are, deciding about that. And, it's just, like, hard process. We need always at least, like, 30 days to get all the papers done, and you have multiple places you have to apply for, like, air control. For example, now we will be flying above the river, so we need to have, like, like, a river, like, people or, like, legislation from the riverside. We have to be in touch with the, the tower from, from the airports. Then we need to be in touch with, with, like, control of the, riverside. So you need to know whether there are flights, whether there are planes, whether there are some boats around. So that's like-

7:18Michal Gula: Okay, so, so it is compli-

7:19Tomáš Barnáš: every little thing.

7:20Michal Gula: It is complicated.

7:21Tomáš Barnáš: Yeah.

7:21Michal Gula: But ha- have you ever experienced the, the f- refusal from institution?

7:27Tomáš Barnáš: so you can get a refusal for the place, but you cannot really... Or, like, maybe you could, but overall, we have all the safety regulation, we have all the licenses. So, the only reason why we could get a refusal is for choosing a wrong spot, and that happened once. but we request it from, like, the most secure spot, or, like, area in, in Slovakia, which was right next to, our authorities of, like, military buildings. And I mean, we knew that it's probably not the best to ask about it, but, we just tried. So they told us, like, "Okay, guys, guys, like, we can talk about it. We can, w- we really allow you to fly from that castle," which is also a military object. But they said, like, "This is our, like, ministry. Like, you can't, like, fly in that zone of that ministry. It's like, it, it's just not possible." So we had to choose another place. They had to relocate the event, actually, and, then, we were able to, to process everything. So yeah, you just need to think in a smart way or a normal way, and you will find a way.

8:43Michal Gula: I know that you already did the projects in, in Slovakia, in Czech Republic. do you have, like, some limitations, or you can go anywhere basically in Europe, or how does it work?

8:54Tomáš Barnáš: Yeah, licenses are European, so we actually don't have a limitation. You just need to contact the right authorities, and some of them, require specific permissions or specific insurances. We have also, like, European insurance for all of the drones, like, for multimillion security in case of damage or something. So it's, like, pretty high, high insurance. But there can be, like, a part of the country which requires something specific, so you just need to get through all of that, and, and yeah.

9:26Michal Gula: Why do you think, if somebody is considering a drone show, why, why should they pick LumiSway and, and not, like, any other brand?

9:35Tomáš Barnáš: Uh-

9:35Michal Gula: What do you think is, is your, like, unique selling proposition?

9:39Tomáš Barnáš: So, the, the, the core team which we, which we actually have, because we also devoted it, like, from, people from Overhead4D, and we just, like, separated the companies. We, like, grouped people for that, for this. And, but, but the people are, good in data optimization. And also we have a person which, was designing many years for blind people, like designs with the braille alphabet and everything. And we just figure out by that, that, having the right people, I'm not saying the other companies doesn't have, but, we just noticed that we are able to do with these 300 drones, like extremely cool experiences, and sometimes even comparing it to 1,000-drone shows, which, were not that... or we were not that impressed that they really had 1,000. You know, like, I would say, like, if I have 1,000, it should look way cooler, but if it's just, like, kind of the similar feeling, then it was waste of money. So I really think we can do with that little am- well, little amount, like with these 300 drones, we can really do a cool show.

10:46Michal Gula: how, how do you think the fact that, you are designer by, by, by education and by your previous job, and also that you are working on, on really more or much more of an artwork rather than the, just the really the capturing, how much do you think it, it helps you to bring nice experience in, in also in drone shows?

11:13Tomáš Barnáš: I think overall that, my past experience, as a designer and also, like, right now I'm still, I'm teaching at design university, so because I have a lot of time. Uh-

11:26Michal Gula: Of course.

11:27Tomáš Barnáš: So, this is a point where I really understand the visuals, and many times I'm somehow, my brain just works, like, to get things done nicely, and somehow I'm always able to avoid then the, the different obstacles we have. Because you are thinking about something technically, and then you are creating, and then you are, like, over-engineering stuff, and then sometimes just missing the visuals because you are focused on the technical part. And, luckily, I was able to, work on many projects also before in the car industry where the technical part was very important, so I was able to understand it and, like, consume the, the knowledge about this, and then being able to cover it w- it with nice stuff. So, I think it's just, like, my past allows me to do things in a nice way and nice way and see them, like, a step ahead, you know? So I see something, and then I just have a feeling like- Okay, like this one doesn't look now, well, but if we do like on a drone show, like if it's for example blinking for a while, then you can have a better feeling. And when you just start to think like, "Okay, like how do I do this? How do I do that?" You are, you are just maybe, maybe technically lost in the, the process, but I rather see the, the, the finished product in my head and then like going straight forward to it.

12:54Michal Gula: I know you hate speaking, money, but still I think for, for our audience it might be interesting to know at least like the range of where, where is it going? Like with, with the drone show, I know it, it takes like fif- 15 or 20 minutes is, is the limit, time limit for the drone show?

13:13Tomáš Barnáš: Probably around 15, yeah.

13:15Michal Gula: Yeah. Some- something like that.

13:16Tomáš Barnáš: Yeah.

13:16Michal Gula: So how much could it cost like in a range for one show somewhere, without travel costs, let's say?

13:24Tomáš Barnáš: I would... Yeah, I would just turn it to something like, you know, you can have, like, fireworks at home, which you buy for, 50 euro, and then you can go to, to Los Angeles and they have fireworks for 5 million. So it's really a thing like, you know, there is like normally a price which is needed for, per drone per show. but it also, differs from the place where you are. And you can't say like, "Don't count with travel costs," because if you ask me to go to Spain for a drone show, then the travel can be sometimes more expensive than the show itself, and then it's like double or triple. So, it always depends on the content, on everything what is there. So it's, it's just, yeah. You like the-

14:10Michal Gula: Okay

14:10Tomáš Barnáš: the numbers. I don't like to say them.

14:12Michal Gula: Okay. is it, thousands? Is it tens of thousands? Is it, hundreds of thousands euros?

14:19Tomáš Barnáš: It, it's, it's definitely like, starting on, dozens of thousands and it can go up to depends on the, on, on the amount of drones.

14:29Michal Gula: Do you, do you have it somewhere?

14:30Tomáš Barnáš: Yeah.

14:30Michal Gula: Like how does it look like?

14:32Tomáš Barnáš: Yeah. So like compared to our other drones, which I have here also, like the 25 kilo DJI M600-... which was, 10 years ago holding the SLR camera with, other 10 kilos payload. this is like pretty small drone. I mean, like you can see it in my hand. and, it's, it's... This one is very good because, I think it's right now the only brand which has a parachute here. So if anything happens and it goes away from the, the planned trajectory or if it's like going, low, faster than it should, just, shoot out the parachute and then it, lands without crashing the drone. So, we have like tested that, online with-

15:17Michal Gula: Is it, is it water, is it water resistant? Be- because you mentioned that-

15:20Tomáš Barnáš: It is

15:20Michal Gula: you are often flying above the water.

15:24Tomáš Barnáš: Yes.

15:25Michal Gula: So will it survive-

15:26Tomáš Barnáš: so-

15:26Michal Gula: When, when it drops to the water, will it survive?

15:29Tomáš Barnáš: So they say, like we had it, even like the first show we were doing on the castle, we had like super... We were super lucky with the weather, I would say. Like first day it was raining like five hours, so actually we sank all the drones in the water. So they were just like, like bottom was covered. You have all the boxes with water and yeah, it was pretty bad. the important part is that you need to dry them well of course then. but, they are pretty water resistant, so it really don't get... Probably if they would drop into water and they are there for three hours, like every electronics, probably they would get damaged, but they can, resist the, the, the rain easily. Like there's no problem with that. Also snow. The problem is that, radio signal has a problems with, with water and with the rain. So actually the signals for operate them are having bigger troubles than the water on, on them. So, yes, they can handle this. They can also handle like officially, like you should fly below 10 meters per second. The, the wind, if there is a wind in 10 meters per second, you shouldn't fly anymore, but 10 meters per second is pretty strong wind. And, the second day on that castle, we had like when we were testing it was 30 meters per second. So we were just praying like how we can make from 30, 10. And-... it was really as forecast shown, like within two hours it dropped from 30 to 10, then we could fly. but, it's crazy that even 10 meters per second and you are able to make like from 300 drones, like in one straight line in the air and they're not moving. They're just, they're there. So that's pretty impressive technology.

17:13Michal Gula: Amazing. where are you doing, next show?

17:17Tomáš Barnáš: There is a festival of light. So actually this, this, this would be one of the coolest show we've ever had because, often it is that the companies is, are requesting you to, to have the show. That means they want to have their logos, they want to have like events, want to have sponsors and all of that, but this is a festival. So it's something like this Venice Fest- Film Festival. So now we have a light festival when there are a lot of art installation and, and we'll have like very cool, light show with, with nice, vibe.

17:46Michal Gula: So you, you, you did get the green light for your creativity?

17:50Tomáš Barnáš: Yes. Yes. And I, I also would say that, now our team got crazy with, with the process of development that also thanks to AI, we were able to, design new softwares which are helping us, us to, to turn our designs into a light shows. because like the, the, the softwares from the producers, you always have some limitations, you know, like they're not, that complex. And we're able to like totally redesign the process of, the show development and, I'm pretty impressed. That would be the first time when we have this, this kind of... So it's not like AI produced, but we, with AI we were able to program in pretty short time something will, what would normally take us, I would say like three years of development and we would need a huge funding on it. And now like with the vibe coding and everything, you can push the, the, the boundaries.

18:47Michal Gula: Thank you for showing the LumiSway project and good luck.

18:51Tomáš Barnáš: Yeah. Thank you very much.