10 million for a single game dropped to 200,000, is the business of drone shows cold?

Text|Tech Planet Zhai Yuanyuan

On Chinese New Year's Eve on New Year's Eve 2024, a pedestrian street in Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province, was coaxed by the audience and finally knelt down to apologize, which caused widespread discussion.

The kneeling incident of the drone show seems to have become a metaphor for the development of the drone show industry. Drone shows are no longer as glamorous and eye-catching as they were when new species were born in the past, and there is a tendency to ebb and flow in terms of volume and gimmicks.

Although in terms of numbers, drone shows are still in the expansion stage. According to the statistics of the "2022 Cultural Tourism Industry Drone Formation Performance Data Insight Report", before the outbreak of the epidemic, the drone performance market ushered in a period of rapid growth, and even in 2021, the number of domestic drone formation performances reached 7,228.

However, the price of drone shows clearly witnesses the industry all the way from the highlight moment to the "fall from the altar". In the past, the price of a drone show was about 10,000 yuan, and a 1,000 drone show required a budget of 10 million. But now, the price of a drone show is only 200 yuan for an unknown company. Only 200,000 for 1,000 drone shows.

From 10 million to 200,000, the price of drone shows has shrunk greatly, and it has also witnessed the ups and downs of this subdivision.

01 Price reduction, aesthetic fatigue, drone show fell off the altar

How popular were drone shows in the past?

The city government and cultural tourism projects are willing to spend tens of millions of yuan to hold a 15-minute drone show, and grand events such as the Spring Festival Gala and the Olympic Games also like to join the drone show.

There is an industry consensus circulating in the domestic UAV field that UAVs are only DJI and others. However, the drone performance market is concentrated in Shenzhen HighGreat Innovation, Shenzhen Dadesert Intelligent Control, Guangzhou EHang Intelligent Control and Tianjin Yifei Intelligent Control Industry Four Dragons. DJI does not make formation models, and it is understood that these four and their service providers occupy more than ninety percent of the domestic drone show market.

Leading companies often like to set the benchmark in their industry and break the Guinness Book of Records. In 2021, HighGreat broke four Guinness World Records with a fleet of 5,200 drones. A business owner of EHang told Tech Planet that in addition to setting a Guinness record in 2018, EHang will also make 10,000 drones in 2023. But the number play of simply brushing the record is not very meaningful, and someone still needs to pay for it in the end.

Whether it is the drone show "Four Little Dragons" or a relatively small drone show company, the price of a single drone show is declining.

In 2018, drone performances were in the limelight, and 1,000 drones performing at the same time were already a difficult benchmark case in the industry. Of course, the price is also very benchmark. A drone show accident in Xi'an accidentally made the price of the drone show public. According to public reports, in 2018, 1,374 drones in Xi'an flew in formation at the south gate of Xi'an City Wall, posing with patterns such as Xi'an City Wall, the Silk Road, and the 40th Anniversary, setting a "Guinness World Record for the largest number of drone performances". However, the pattern in the performance was garbled, and the overturning was more serious.

Afterwards, the media broke out the "Announcement on the Transaction of the Drone Performance Project of the Spring Dance Great Xi'an City Wall Thousand Drones Light and Shadow Festival", which showed that the supplier of the transaction was EHang Egret and the transaction amount of the performance project was 10.5 million yuan. The average price of a drone is as high as 7,642 yuan.

Today, 6 years later, according to EHang sales, the price of a drone show is 1,000-1,200 yuan, and the price can be lower if there are more units. The price of purchasing a drone is about 8,000 yuan. It is equivalent to the price of one performance in the past, and now it is possible to buy a drone directly.

Unknown small and medium-sized drone performance companies, the asking price is lower. Wang Lei, a person in charge of the drone show business who has been engaged in the drone show business for 5 years, told Tech Planet that the drone show business is just one of their more than 20 businesses, and their company is headquartered in Guangzhou, with a single drone show business and an executive team of more than 30 people.

In terms of cost, the price of drone shows varies from city to city and day to day. Compared with southern cities, northern cities such as Northeast China, Shaanxi, Gansu, and Tibet will be a little more expensive. Prices are higher on holidays than on weekdays.

Wang Lei said that the largest performance they have ever done in 2023 is in Wenzhou, when 2,000 drones were used and the fee was 600,000 yuan. A drone is equivalent to 300 yuan. In the past few years, their family has charged 800-1,000 yuan for a drone performance flight.

The most popular drone show was in 2018-2019. Wang Lei recalled that although the early technology was immature, and the drones fell and the patterns were often garbled during the performance, there were relatively few players at that time, and there was a certain technical threshold for drone performances, and the public was more concerned about this kind of high-tech. Now that drone performance technology is becoming more and more mature, there are almost no drone falling incidents, which is already a normal flight, but everyone has long been visually fatigued.

02 Who will pay? Leaning towards personal consumption scenarios

In the drone show market, most of the early customers are government activities. In 2018, the Xi'an drone show that overturned was finally financed by the local government.

Now, cultural tourism projects and scenic spots have gradually become the focus of the drone show market. According to the data, in 2021, the proportion of drone shows in cultural tourism scenic spots will be as high as 36%. One of the four tigers, Desert Technology, whose main business is to meet the needs of cultural tourism, has settled in more than 50 domestic theme parks and attractions such as Zhuhai Chimelong Ocean Kingdom, Guangzhou Chimelong Resort, Beijing Gubei Water Town, Huai'an Westward Tour, etc., with a market share of 62.5% in the subdivision of theme parks.

Many scenic spots have even begun to purchase drones on their own to normalize drone performances. EHang said that in order to normalize drone performances, many scenic spots will purchase drones from them, and then EHang will provide certain technical guidance to the staff of the scenic spots. A drone is about 8,000 yuan, and the cost of flying a few times in the scenic spot will come back.

The scenic spot uses drone shows as a "gimmick" to try to attract more tourists. A netizen who went to Gubei Water Town to watch the drone show on New Year's Eve and Chinese New Year's Eve said that there are such performances in Gubei Water Town on large holidays. I waited for a long time to see the drone show that day, but later due to signal interference, the scenic spot notified everyone that the show was canceled.

In addition, drone show services are constantly leaning towards personal consumption scenarios. Drone show companies can be said to have witnessed the change process of customers, a number of drone show company leaders told Tech Planet that most of the drone show activities are now government, cultural tourism scenic spot projects, real estate companies, car companies are also one of the customers of drone show. In addition, there are many personal marriage proposals, birthday shows, and fan support scene projects.

Chen Yang, an employee of a drone show company in Guangzhou, said that his company has been in the market since 2016. The company now grows to dozens of people and has more than 100 drone shows a year, each of which is usually 15 minutes from takeoff to landing. Among them, there are about 5-6 orders per month for drone performances in personal consumption scenarios.

Drone performance companies are more competitive, we can only make differentiation in the drone model, stability, and customized screens, and Chen Yang's drone performance services generally provide customers with 12-15 patterns and picture customization opportunities. The demand is constantly escalating, and some customers have requirements for the performance time and want the performance time to be longer, Chen Yang said that this demand can usually be met, but due to the consideration of unexpected risks, it cannot be extended for too long, at most to 16-17 minutes.

Whether it is a cultural tourism scenic spot or an individual, everyone hopes that the risk of drone performance accidents will be minimized. In this case, the drone show company usually signs a contract with the customer, and the non-takeoff rate is 3%. Then, in order to ensure the take-off scene, staff will be sent to the site survey in advance.

Chen Yang said that large-scale events usually use 1,000 drones, which cost almost 230,000 yuan. There are more 500-600 drone shows, and fewer drones are used in personal scenes, generally 200-300 units. For a drone show for a personal proposal scene, it usually takes 50 drones for one word, and 300 for 6 words of "name + marry me".

03 Are drone shows a good business?

According to the data, by the end of 2022, there were 15,000 drone operating enterprises in the country, with an annual output value of 117 billion yuan, 950,000 registered drones, and about 386 million real-time drone flights.

The drone show, with artistic creation, lights up a city again and again, bringing the public a visual feast. But is it a good business from a business perspective?

The drone show business was originally an unexpected attempt by frustrated people in the cold winter of the industry. No one in the domestic UAV companies can shake the position of the industry's No. 1 DJI, industry investment is ebbing, enterprises cannot get financing, and they have fallen into a life-and-death dilemma. In desperation, companies began to look for a new way out, and when they went to inventory, they unexpectedly caught up with the market demand for drone shows. Since then, the order has flowed.

EHang is one of the earliest entrants in the drone performance field. Hu Huazhi, founder and CEO of EHang, said in an interview that it is indeed difficult for consumer-grade drones to make good profits, and the company has used thousands of drones to engage in formation business, which has unexpectedly generated considerable benefits.

The drone performance business has reversed the unprofitable situation of EHang's consumer drones, and the development of the flight formation "completely exceeded the company's expectations", and the annual performance revenue was even expected to exceed 100 million yuan.

In 2019, EHang landed in the capital market. According to its prospectus, in 2018, the aerial media business with drone performances as the core generated 31.3 million yuan in revenue, accounting for 47% of the total revenue.

However, after the listing, EHang failed to maintain the growth rate of the past. According to EHang's financial report, EHang achieved total revenue of 44.32 million yuan in 2022, compared with 56.81 million yuan in the same period of the previous year, a year-on-year decrease of 22%, and a net loss of 329.3 million yuan, compared with 313.9 million yuan in the same period of 2021. The net loss attributable to the parent company was 328.2 million yuan, compared with a net loss of 314 million yuan in the same period last year, an increase of 4.54% year-on-year. Adjusted net loss (non-GAAP) was $206.2 million, compared to $198.0 million in 2021.

The drone show business has also been gradually marginalized in the strategic adjustment. An employee of EHang told Tech Planet that EHang's main business is manned unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and the drone show business is relatively marginal. Business is even a little hesitant to consult clients on drone shows. A consumer who has been in contact with EHang said that when he consulted EHang's drone show business on a Friday, they asked the customer to add their WeChat, and then said that they could only give the customer the relevant flight show case and price on Monday.

Another leading drone performance company is also not very attentive to customers. The above-mentioned consumers said that Tianjin Yifei Intelligent Control is also very sluggish to customers, and they do not seem to be in a hurry to win orders for customer drone performances.

The revenue from domestic low-priced drone shows seems to be unable to meet the operating costs of enterprises, coupled with the fierce competition between enterprises, leading companies have begun to expand overseas markets. EHang Business told Tech Planet that due to the impact of the epidemic, the company began to extend its tentacles overseas, and now the overseas business revenue has increased, and the demand is great. Overseas customers like dynamic 3D three-dimensional shows flying from point A to point B, and domestic customers like 2D more.

The price of foreign countries is also higher, and the price of a single drone show is more than 3,000 yuan, which is 3 times higher than that in China.

In the short term, drone shows can be a revenue-generating business for drone companies. However, in the long run, with the normalization of drone performances, the audience will become increasingly aesthetically fatigued, and without differentiated drone performances, the living space may become smaller and smaller.