Fairs & Carnivals from the Sky

While the Carnival celebration is closely associated with Rio de Janeiro, it is exuberantly celebrated throughout Brazil.  In this drone video, contributor RG CAM was able to capture the Carnival celebrations in the city of Belo Horizonte, the third largest city of the officially recognized region of Southeastern Brazil after Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.  Belo Horizonte is the capital of the state of Minas Gerais, which is the country's second most-populous after the state of Sao Paulo.

The Minnesota State Fair is held annually in late August through Labor Day weekend in an area of St. Paul, the "twin city" to Minneapolis.  Widely known as the Great Minnesota Get Together, the Fair is one of the largest such gatherings in the country.  In 2017, AirVuz collaborated with the Fair to provide drone coverage of the event for the first time.  Using fully licensed operators, AirVuz created a series of videos showing the Fair and different events occurring there, from an aerial perspective.  

Ivana Kupala is an ancient Eastern European festival held in mid-summer.  The annual celebration is observed in many areas of the region, namely in parts of the Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, and Russia.  Tied to the summer solstice, Ivana Kupala occurs the night of July 6th/7th on the Eastern Orthodox calendar, which corresponds to June 23rd/24th on the Gregorian calendar. Contributor and pilot Valerii Iavtushenko flew a drone over an Ivana Kupula celebration in Ukraine to make this amazing aerial video.  

In Minnesota, in the northern USA, the short summer months are packed with outdoor festivals.  Given the growing reputation of the Twin Cities as a "foodie" city, it's not surprising that one of the fastest growing summer gatherings is the Food Truck Festival in Minneapolis.  Based in the city's trendy Uptown neighborhood, a gentrified area south of downtown, the festival features hundreds of food trucks, live music, food, and plenty of beer.  AirVuz collaborated with the organizer to film the event in 2017.

Holi Festivals are a Hindu tradition in which participants cover themselves in bright colots.  The festivals began in India but have become popular with non-Hindus throughout the world.  One of the largest  is the Holi Hai Festival of Colors in Busan, South Korea.  Contributor Aerial Aspects worked with the event's organizers to film the 2017 festival with a drone, providing us with an amazing aerial view of this sea of colors in the second-largest city of South Korea after the capital, Seoul.

Cargo ships no longer ply the waters of the Inner Harbor of Baltimore, Maryland, once one of the USA's busiest seaports.  With the city's more modern port now downriver, the Inner Harbor is now a place for entertainment, dining and festivals.  The biggest thing to hit the Inner Harbor is the Light City Festival, which is a smorgasbord of music, visual arts, and lights.  Contributor Jeff Walrich worked with the promoters to create this amazing aerial and ground look at a major gathering in this Mid-Atlantic USA city.  

Caye Caulker is a small coral island off the coast of the Central American nation of Belize, in the Caribbean Sea.  While the island has only 2,000 permanent residents, it's become one of the top destinations driving adventure-seeking tourists to this small country just south of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula.  In this video, you'll get a taste of the tropical paradise through the drone camera of contributor and pilot J'aerial Photography, who filmed the cay during its annual Lobsterfest.  

Contributor and drone pilot Ninad Maneghatta created this beautiful drone video of one of the largest fairs in southern India.  It's held at the Marikamba Temple in Sirsi, a town in the south Indian state of Karnataka.  Located a bit inland from the Malabar Coast, the town of Sirsi is surrounded by forests and waterfalls.  The festival here is held every two years, and is believed to be the largest such gathering in the state.  Karnataka was once known as Mysore and its largest city is Bangalore.  

Drones allow us to see large outdoor gatherings from an entirely new perspective.  Case in point is this excellent drone video from India by contributor damardhaval.  He aerially filmed a massive celebration in the city of Vadodara during the Hindu festival of Navrati.  It's known as a Garba dance, and it originated here in the western state of Gujarat.  The gathering is called Garba Mahotsav, and it attracts tens of thousands of spectator-participants every year.  It's sponsored by the United Way of Baroda 

FPV pilot nurkfpv gets to have a lot of fun. He flies some of the coolest locations in the world. This unique spot is no exception; the Minnesota State Fair is the largest state fair in the United States of America by average daily attendance. Known as “The Great Minnesota Get-Together” the Fair is held every year during the 12 days before and during Labor Day. AirVuz has worked with the State Fair for years, providing aerial and ground footage. That’s how nurkfpv was able to fly inside the grounds, taking The State Fair in in this spectacular cinewhoop piece. 

The Hull Fair is one of the great traditions of this city in Yorkshire, England which is technically known as Kingston-Upon-Hull.  Held for eight days in October, the fair dates to the 13th century.  The fair includes numerous amusement park type rides and draws visitors from all over the United Kingdom and beyond.  In this outstanding drone video by top AirVuz contributor ChristopherFenton, you'll get an aerial nighttime view of the great fair.  The video was shot with a Zenmuse X5 camera mounted to a DJI Inspire 2.  

Brazil is the world's largest Catholic country, and its Lent festival known as Carnival is one of the most important times in Brazilian culture.  While it's most closely associated with the city of Rio de Janeiro, all of the large Brazilian cities (and most of its smaller ones) have similar festivities before the onset of Lent.  In this remarkable drone video, you'll get an aerial view of Carnaval in Vitória, the capital city of the state of Espírito Santo and the center of one of the 15 largest metropolitan areas in the country.  

Check out this first person view (FPV) drone tour of the Texas Renaissance Festival, compliments of top AirVuz contributor LiftedMedia.  The video features fly-through's and fly-by's of some of the festival's top attractions.  There's even some VFX in the mix - check out the shots at the :39, :55, and 1:00 marks, among other places.  The video was put together with the assistance of top FPV pilots nurkFPV and betoFPV.  This video was picked for the FPV Pilots to Watch list in November of 2021.   

In this epic drone video by contributor and pilot Damardhaval, you'll get an amazing bird's eye view of thousands of people participating in an Indian folk dance.  It's part of the United Way Garba Celebration at Vadodara, Gujarat, the westernmost state of India.  The occasion is Navratri, a nine-day Hindu festival that occurs in September/October every year.  In other parts of India, it is celebrated at different times of the year and in some cases with greater than annual frequency.  

Check out this stunning drone video of a cultural festival in the island nation of Taiwan, compliments of content creator and pilot BestDayEver.  The festival is held in the town of Beigang, which is situated in Yunlin County on the island's western shore, between Tainan and Taichung.  Beigang is best known as the home of the Chaotian Temple, which you'll see at about the 1:05 mark in the video.  The temple is dedicated to the Chinese sea-goddess Mazu under a faith which originated in Fujian on the mainland.