A Thousand Drones for Leehom — Crostars Lights Up Shanghai Before Wang Leehom’s Concert Tour
On the evening of August 14, along Shanghai’s Yangpu waterfront, a thousand drones rose into the night sky and spent the next several minutes drawing Wang Leehom’s world across it. Wang Leehom (王力宏) — the Chinese-American singer-songwriter known internationally as Leehom Wang, whom CNN dubbed “King of Chinese Pop” — was in the middle of his “The Best Place” world tour. The Shanghai leg was still days away. This was a warm-up. And it was planned in secret.
What Went Up in the Sky
The show opened with the tour’s title characters assembled in light above the city. Then came the Bahamut — Wang Leehom’s signature dragon-shaped electric guitar, a symbol his fans know immediately — rendered in full formation across the night sky above the waterfront buildings.
From there, the drones moved through a sequence pulled from his catalogue. The Chinese dragon lifted off in a formation that matched the sweep of Descendants of the Dragon, one of his defining songs. Scenes followed that referenced other familiar tracks — Heaven and Earth Dragon Scales, Full Force, Need Someone, Heartbeat. For people who know the music, it was a setlist written in light. The show closed with a thousand drones assembling into Wang Leehom’s image, hands crossed in a heart — a gesture directed at the fans gathered along the riverbank.
Wang Leehom Watched the Show in Person
What most people watching the footage online didn’t know immediately was that Wang Leehom had been brought in to watch the show in person. He stood in the viewing area with the crowd, looking up at the same sky everyone else was looking at.
His reaction wasn’t performed for a camera. He clapped. He matched the gesture when the drones formed the heart shape above him. When the Bahamut appeared — his guitar, his symbol — he said, out loud: “So beautiful.” He said it was his first time watching a drone show from this close. That it was overwhelming.
He wasn’t wrong. A thousand drones in tight formation over a city waterfront, at night, is not a small thing.
How Shi Zheyuan Planned the Show
The performance was planned by Crostars Chairman Shi Zheyuan, who has known Wang Leehom for years. It wasn’t a commercial pitch or a sponsored activation — it was, in the plainest sense, one person making something extraordinary for a friend, and deciding to do it in the sky above Shanghai.
Shi Zheyuan described his thinking this way: “Leehom’s music carries energy. It’s been part of so many people’s lives — yours, mine, everyone’s. We wanted to use light in the night sky to recreate those memories. Every drone in formation is a tribute to this tour. Every frame of that show is what we mean when we say art should illuminate the world.”
The show was produced and executed by Crostars — the same team that has delivered drone performances across 30+ countries. If you want to understand the scale of what went into this technically, the C5 system that powers shows like this one took years to build and is behind everything from private proposals to international festivals. Read more about Crostars if you’re curious.
What Happened Afterwards
Footage from the show spread fast. Three hours after it ended, clips on Douyin had passed 100 million plays. Within days, related hashtags had accumulated 500 million total views. The reaction wasn’t just fans of Wang Leehom — it was people who had never seen a drone show at this scale reacting to the images themselves.
Comments ranged from the expected (“Nobody deserves this more than him”) to something more interesting: people who didn’t know who had organized the show asking how something like this could be arranged for their own events. That night, the Shanghai World Expo Valley landmark also lit up in coordinated fashion — a ground-level light display that ran in sync with the aerial performance overhead. The effect was the kind of thing that doesn’t happen accidentally. Two separate systems, two different scales, one moment.
Why Drone Shows Work for Events Like This
Drone shows have become a serious part of how major events are built and announced in China, and increasingly everywhere else. The Wang Leehom show is a good example of why: it wasn’t just visually impressive, it was personal. It referenced specific songs. It used imagery that had meaning to the people watching it. It wasn’t generic.
That’s the direction Crostars has always pointed toward — not spectacle for its own sake, but shows that carry something. The Global Landmark Summit Initiative, the Sky Art Gallery project, and collaborations like this one are all part of the same larger aim.
If you’re thinking about what a drone show could look like for your event — a concert, a brand launch, a public celebration — you’re welcome to get in touch. The team that built this one is the same team you’d be working with.