A public-records dataset of outdoor drone light show contract prices — assembled entirely from municipal council minutes, procurement records, and reporting on public agreements.
"What does a drone show cost?" is one of the highest-volume buyer questions in the aerial-effects space, currently answered nowhere with primary sources. Every row is a real, publicly disclosed figure — a council-approved contract, a procurement tender, or (clearly labeled) a reported estimate — traceable to its source. Published by Sitara Skies, an aerial show design studio, as one of the R-track records alongside The Show-File Compatibility Matrix, The Fleet Operator Directory, and The Indoor Aerial Permitting Record.
See docs/methodology.md for full sourcing and per-drone computation
rules.
| File | Rows | Source |
|---|---|---|
data/contracts.csv |
25 | Municipal council minutes/Legistar records, procurement tenders, and news reporting on public agreements (23 US rows + 1 UK tender, plus 1 market-study context row) |
6 rows were added by cross-referencing The Fleet Operator Directory's roster against additional public records (a sourcing technique worth repeating on future refreshes): Sterling Heights MI, SeaTac WA, Eden Prairie MN, Flagstaff AZ, Sunnyvale CA, and a not-yet-awarded bid from South Pasadena CA.
Columns: slug, date, location, fleet_size, fleet_size_approx, amount_usd, amount_original, currency, per_drone_usd, qualifier, qualifier_label, event, vendor, source_url, source_type, accessed_date, notes.
Machine-readable by design: fleet_size, amount_usd,
amount_original, and per_drone_usd are plain numbers (empty string
when unknown) — never a range, a "" prefix, or embedded text.
" prefix on approximate fleet sizes as a display choice only — the
underlying JSON value stays a clean integer.fleet_size_approx (y/n) flags source-stated approximation separately;
every other qualifier (ceiling, combined scope, partial grant, a figure
that moved across coverage) lives in the qualifier code + free-text
notes, not inside a numeric field. The site's browse table renders a
"
- Per-drone cost is computed (amount ÷ fleet size, rounded to the nearest $10) only where both figures are a clean, disclosed number for a single show in USD — left blank for combined-scope contracts, partial grants, undisclosed fleet sizes, or non-USD rows.
- Two rows are non-USD (Shellharbour, Australia in AUD; Coventry, UK in GBP) — kept as non-US comparables, never mixed into USD figures.
- One row (Long Beach, "Big Bang on the Bay") is a reported organizer estimate, not a signed contract, and is labeled as such.
- One row (SPH Engineering market study) is an aggregate market statistic across ~1,000 shows in 62 countries, not an individual transaction — included for context only.
- One row (South Pasadena, CA) is a not-yet-awarded bid with three
priced fleet-size tiers rather than a single resolved contract — fleet
size and amount are left blank (the tiers are in
notes) rather than picking one arbitrarily. - One row (Sunnyvale, CA) is flagged lower-confidence: the price comes from a pre-award budget authorization and the vendor is confirmed via a separate source, not one document naming both.
- This record covers outdoor drone light shows only; indoor operated aerial effects are priced differently and are not represented here.
Dataset and documentation released under CC BY 4.0. Attribution: "The Drone Show Cost Record."