Thousands of drones lit up the Big Apple sky in a breathtaking installation Saturday night — marking the first orchestrated drone flights to dance above Central Park.
The show, organized by Dutch studio DRIFT, soared above the park’s lake in an exploration of the “relationship between humans, nature and technology.”
Thousands of spectators stood in silence and anticipation as the horde of unmanned aircraft soared for the first time in the park’s history.
“It was definitely interesting,” said Debra Soul, 65, from Flatbush.
Paola Torres, a 35-year-old art director, applauded the artistic nature of the show, noting it was “flowy.”
Liam Rexius, 22, of the Upper East Side, attended the show with his fiancée and noted that the drones didn’t appear to take a specific shape, but glided around one another.
“It was our first drone show so it was cool regardless,” he said.
Of all the people The Post talked to, they all shared the same complaint: that the show didn’t last longer.
The illuminating night — titled Franchise Freedom — was billed as an open-air “kinetic aerial sculpture” that utilized 1,000 drones to mimic a flock of starlings.
The colorful drones ebbed above the lake in three separate, 10-minute showings in what organizers said was the culmination of five years of coordination and planning.
The performance also marked the largest public artwork project in Central Park since Bulgarian artist Christo Yavacheff and French artist Jeanne-Claude installed 7,503 vinyl “gates” along 23 miles of the park’s pathways.
The Foundation to Combat Antisemitism, founded by New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, had planned a drone show of its own in Central Park Saturday night, but it was postponed. It would have illuminated the common “blue square” emoji along with the words “Stand Up to All Hate,” it said in a statement.
The organization adopted the emoji as its “universal symbol for the fight against all forms of hate.”
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