Methodology
Sourcing rules
- Public sources only. Every row carries a link to council minutes/a Legistar record, a procurement tender, or news reporting that quotes the figure directly. Nothing is estimated or reconstructed by this record.
- Contract, estimate, or study — always labeled. The "Type" column distinguishes a signed contract from a reported estimate (not yet a contract), a partial grant (covers only part of the total cost), a public tender award band, and one market-study context row that is not an individual transaction.
- Rows found but not independently verifiable were dropped, not padded in. Several additional shows were identified during research (Poulsbo WA, Park City UT, Tucson AZ, SeaWorld San Diego, Vivid Sydney, Blackpool, and others) but lacked either a disclosed dollar figure or a citable primary source for the one found — they are not included.
Machine-readable fields
Every numeric field in contracts.json/contracts.csv
is a plain number — never a range, a "~" prefix, or embedded text.
fleet_size is a clean integer or empty; where a source
described it as approximate, that's flagged separately in the boolean
fleet_size_approx column, and only shown as a "~" prefix in
the browse page's display (a rendering choice, not a data value).
amount_usd (or amount_original +
currency for the two non-USD rows) is likewise a clean
number or empty — never "up to," never a range, never a parenthetical.
Every qualifier that would otherwise have been jammed into a number
(a not-to-exceed ceiling, a combined-scope award, a partial grant, a
figure that moved across coverage) lives instead in the
qualifier code and the free-text notes column,
surfaced in the browse table as the type tag's hover tooltip.
Per-drone cost
Computed as 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 where the amount covers a combined scope (Destin, FL's drone+fireworks package), a partial grant rather than the full contract (Culver City, Metamora), an undisclosed or multi-year-ambiguous fleet size (Ocala's renewal), or a non-USD row (Shellharbour in AUD, Coventry in GBP — kept as non-US comparables, never mixed into a USD per-drone average).
Indoor/outdoor scope
Every row in this record is an outdoor drone light show. Indoor operated aerial effects are priced on an entirely different basis and are covered instead by Sitara Skies' own operated aerial effects pricing and cost guide.
Notable rows worth reading in full
- Ocala, FL is the record's fullest lifecycle example: an inaugural contract, a 2-year renewal, and a termination for cause after a separate safety incident.
- Westerly, RI is the only row with disclosed competing bid amounts ($36,750 winning vs. $45,000 and $55,000 losing).
Refresh
Reviewed quarterly: links re-verified, new rows added, the last-updated stamp bumped.