AirVuz 2020 NYC Drone Film Festival goes virtual

Since coronavirus, many major drone events have been postponed. Others have gone virtual. And AirVuz’s 2020 NYC Drone Film Festival is doing both. The 6th Annual New York City Drone Film Festival is set to be an entirely online event this year.

The event was originally set for this weekend, in fact. It was scheduled to be held July 25-26 at its usual location at the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City, NJ.

Instead, AirVuz is moving the 2020 NYC Drone Film Festival to an online only event, due of course to safety concerns amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

To get the online-only event organized, AirVuz also postponed it until Oct. 24, 2020.

2020 is a huge year of change for the New York City Drone Film Festival. Besides going online, the event is under new ownership. The beloved, annual event was acquired by Minneapolis-based drone video community AirVuz at the beginning of 2020.

Initially, AirVuz said they didn’t expect the event to be any different than year’s past other than a few new faces behind the scenes. Slavin would still have a hand in the show, it would be in its same location, and it would include the usual ancillary events like a tech expo, drone racing exhibition, drone piloting workshops, filmmaking and drone-centric masterclasses, and the world’s best drone films on the big screen.

Of course, AirVuz didn’t anticipate a pandemic.

But organizers don’t anticipate the experience to be any worse just because it’s online. With the online event, the films will be able to be streamed online — so you won’t even need to leave your couch to watch 2020’s best drone videos. The online version is also set to have presentations from experts and professionals in the drone industry.

“We’re going to have a kick-ass show filled with the best drone films in the world, as usual,” said NYCDFF founder and director Randy Scott Slavin.

Because the film festival has been pushed back for so many months, the deadline to submit videos has also been pushed back to Aug. 8, 2020. What’s more, submissions to the 2020 New York City Drone Film Festival are free when uploaded to AirVuz.com.

The 2020 NYC Drone Film Festival is one of many events this year going from in-person to online-only. AirWorks 2020, DJI’s annual commercial drone gathering, ditched its Los Angeles venue in favor of the Internet. The Federal Aviation Administration’s annual UAS symposium also went online only, drawing angry comments after the government agency charged nearly $400 for virtual passes. Other big drone events are postponing but are planning for IRL events. Interdrone 2020 rescheduled from August to December. The World of Drones and Robotics Congress 2020 postponed from September to November.

Are you planning to attend any virtual or IRL events this year? Leave a comment below!