For the past 19 years, Commencement Program Manager Lori Boyce has worked alongside her eight-person team at the Registrar’s Office to put together Liberty University’s Commencement Week celebrations alongside various departments on campus. Over the past two years, the mission to make Commencement a night to remember has reflected tangibly through the introduction of the drone show during the main ceremony.
Liberty’s first drone show debuted for the Class of 2025 at Williams Stadium. Several months prior, Boyce and Senior Vice President of Marketing and Communication Kristin Conrad presented a proposal to President Dondi Costin and Chancellor Jonathan Falwell about the possibility of bringing this vision to life.
“We want to make this an amazing experience for our guests and our graduates,” Boyce said. “It ties directly into the drone show. It’s about experience and celebrating and featuring Liberty and our grads, and that’s what we are really striving for with that.”
After the idea was approved, the Commencement planning team hit the ground running in order to create a production that would be bigger and better than previous years’ memorable fireworks display.
“We like doing things very well here at Liberty,” Boyce said. “If we’re going to do this, we’re going to do it right. We looked at several companies and (Sky Elements) was just top-notch for us.”
Sky Elements is the largest drone show provider in the United States. Because the team does not visit the show site beforehand or conduct any rehearsals elsewhere, Sky Elements worked closely with Liberty to craft a show perfect for Williams Stadium.
Sky Elements’ expansive portfolio includes sporting events and music festivals; drone shows hosted at graduation ceremonies are less common due to lack of airspace. However, Williams Stadium offered the perfect environment for the show to fly.
“Being at Liberty is an awesome experience,” Kyle Pivnick, vice president of Sky Elements said. “We have the story being told in the sky that’s special to the audience there, and I think on any event it’s special, but Liberty’s an extra special one because of how big, amazing and just custom it is for that audience.”
This year’s 10-to-12-minute show will include classic images like Flames mascot Sparky and a 3D graduation cap, as well as many new elements. The number of drones also increased from 300 to 500, allowing for more defined visuals and dynamic movement. Additionally, the show will feature patriotic elements in honor of the nation’s 250th anniversary.
For the creative visuals and audio aspects, the Commencement planning team and Sky Elements worked with Liberty Marketing to make sure the show resonates through music and audio tracks, combining Sky Elements’ expertise with the essence of student life at Liberty.
This partnership allowed all parties to work together on design mockups and storyboards. The team will also approve a timed-out video render.
“Putting what Liberty does together with what Sky Elements does is what makes it magical,” Boyce said. “It’s really cool.”
Liberty’s partnership with firework company Pyro Shows will also continue, as well as introducing pyro drones for the first time.
As a production company, Sky Elements’ ultimate goal is to create a show efficiently, effectively and fantastically. These skills were especially refined during their run on Season 19 of America’s Got Talent (AGT), in which the team finished in third place.
“I think the lessons we learned from AGT were how to tell a story,” Pivnick said. “And that’s something that I think we got a lot of reps in … We’ve done it at thousands of different shows … but America’s Got Talent really had us flexing that capability as much as we could and bringing that to an event like this is definitely something that we’re going to be reflecting on to be able to do.”
Sky Elements’ experience and expertise in storytelling through TV translates well to their in-person shows. They strive to make each graduate feel as though the celebration is truly for them.
“It’s sort of (like) wrapping a bow on (college),” Pivnick said. “ … I want people to feel like it’s a finale where they earned it, because the show’s made for them. It’s made for the people who have gone through the hardship, the challenges … and everything in between, and this is that moment for them.”
Since this is the second year that Sky Elements will be visiting Liberty Mountain, the teams have used last year’s show as a springboard to improve upon. Their main focus during preparation has been utilizing time code management to ensure all aspects are synced with one another seamlessly.
Boyce revisits the videos of last year’s show not to see the dazzling visuals displayed 300 feet in the air, but to hear the excitement of the audience. To her, this is what makes all the work during the year worth it.
“With any event, being able to perform images that are special to that audience is really one of the things that is special to me,” Pivnick said. “Being able to see the people’s reactions for going through the several years that they have been there for university to then have that final moment — that coalition of their experience come together in that formation — is really what makes it special.”
For more information on Sky Elements at Liberty, visit skyelementsdrones.com/case-study graduation.
Hagen is the feature editor for the Liberty Champion.