Briefs That Come with Three Words
April 2026. The iDrone team received a brief from Pertamina Lubricant for the National Distributor Summit (NDS) 2026 — an annual gathering that gathers thousands of distributors from all over Indonesia at the Shangrila Hotel Jakarta. This year's big theme: CONNECT · CONQUER · COMPETE.
Three words. Three formations. And among them, a series of visuals that must tell the story of Pertamina Lubricant's journey as the leader of the national lubricant market - from the red and white flag to the silhouette of a sports motorbike, from the map of the archipelago to the oil refinery which is the heart of their business.
Show date: April 14 2026. Location: outdoor area of Shangrila Hotel Jakarta. Fleet: 150 latest generation iDrone drones. This is our biggest corporate show in the first quarter of 2026.
Exclusive to iDrone Latest Generation Drones
It is important for us to state from the start: the technology used at the 2026 NDS show is not standard for all fleets. This is an exclusive capability of iDrone's next-generation fleet of drones — units that will enter commercial operation in early 2026 and are only available for special pre-booking shows.
The previous generation fleet is still operational and capable of producing spectacular shows. But if you want the highest precision and visual quality we offer today — as felt by Pertamina Lubricant at NDS 2026 — it comes from this newest fleet.
What Sets the New Generation Apart?
First: a multi-constellation GNSS positioning system — not just GPS, but combined with GLONASS and BeiDou simultaneously. The result: position accuracy increased from ±15 cm (old generation) to ±8 cm. For viewers, this means letters like 'CONNECT' look sharper and the text is easier to read from a distance.
Second: new generation LED array with 35% higher luminosity at the same power consumption. The colors are deeper, the saturation is richer — especially visible in the red and white formation of the Indonesian flag and Pertamina Lubricant's signature green accents. The old fleet still produces bright and beautiful visuals, but this new generation is visibly more 'striking' in the sky.
Third: an updated drone-to-ground station communications system with end-to-end encryption and dual link redundancy. In a venue like the Shangrila Hotel where the RF environment is very dense — thousands of WiFi devices, cellular and broadcast equipment — this is a crucial difference. The old generation was reliable, but this new generation has a much higher interference tolerance.
Fourth: this latest generation is a platform that supports additional module payloads — including the pyrotechnic spark module and color smoke canister which will become iDrone's new capabilities in 2026. Previous generations of the fleet did not support these additional payloads due to differences in frame design and power systems.
If your event requires this latest fleet, please inform us at the beginning of the brief because availability is limited and we allocate it based on the booking schedule. Ideal lead time: 8–12 weeks before the show.
Formation Designed for National Distribution
Eight main formations were specifically designed for the NDS 2026 narrative. Each formation is a chapter of the same story: Pertamina Lubricant distribution that reaches every corner of Indonesia.
Opening: three theme words — CONNECT in Pertamina green, CONQUER in gold, COMPETE in blue. These three text formations are deliberately displayed sequentially to build a crescendo, not all at once. Each word flies for 12 seconds before morphing into the next.
Middle act: a red-and-white map of the Indonesian archipelago emerges from the drone chaos in what looks like an 'explosion of light'. This was the most emotional formation — thousands of distributors from Sabang to Merauke watched their own work areas reflected in the sky in the red and white light of nationality.
The next formation: the Red and White Flag in official proportions, the hero mascot in red-white-blue, a cyan oil refinery symbolizing Pertamina's upstream business, a multicolor sports motorbike as a symbol of the lubricant end-user segment, and two shaking hands - a symbol of distributor partnership which is the core theme of NDS.
Technical Challenges: 5 Star Hotels and RF Interference
Shangrila Hotel Jakarta is a premium venue which also means a challenging technical environment. Thousands of WiFi devices, hotel security systems, broadcast press equipment, and participant smartphones all compete on the same frequency spectrum as our drone communications systems.
The iDrone technical team conducted a site survey two days before the show. Using a spectrum analyzer, we map out the cleanest frequency channels and configure our ground stations to operate on frequencies with minimal interference. The result: the show ran without a single signal dropout.
Second challenge: the layout of the Shangrila outdoor area has several tall trees and architectural structures that need to be avoided in the flight path. Our team created a 3D model of the venue using portable LiDAR data, then integrated this obstacle map into flight planning software to automatically generate a safe trajectory.
The Moment That Made Thousands of Distributors Stand Up
When the red-and-white archipelago map formation was perfectly formed at a height of 70 meters, a distributor from Makassar pointed towards the sky and shouted to his colleague next to him: 'That's Sulawesi! That's us!' — something no scriptwriter could have planned for.
Moments like that are what make drone shows different from other visual mediums. Not just a spectacle — but a mirror that allows the audience to see themselves in the work. Thousands of distributors who attended, from Banda Aceh to Papua, felt represented in the same formation.
The longest applause was not in the most technical formation, but in the formation of two shaking hands at the end of the show - a symbol of partnership which is the core theme of NDS 2026. When the formation was formed, there was a natural standing ovation from thousands of participants without being commanded by the MC.
Results and Impact
The show lasted 10 minutes with 9 formations without a single technical incident. Footage recorded by the Pertamina Lubricant media team and by the participants organically spread on LinkedIn, Instagram and various internal distributor WhatsApp groups.
What's more important than going viral: the drone show succeeded in becoming a 'peak moment' that united thousands of distributors from all over Indonesia in one collective emotion. That is the ultimate goal of corporate communications — and iDrone is proud to be a part of achieving it.
Pertamina Lubricant NDS 2026 is proof that drone shows are not just for festivals or weddings. In the corporate space — amidst thousands of business partners who want to feel recognized and celebrated — drone shows have a power that no other medium can match.
About iDrone and Our Latest Technology
iDrone continues to invest in fleet and technology development. The latest generation of drones used at NDS 2026 is part of our technology roadmap for 2026–2027 that includes improvements in accuracy, battery capacity and new visual effects capabilities — including the integration of pyrotechnics and color smoke currently in the commercialization phase.
If you want to bring an experience like NDS 2026 to your corporate event, conference or gathering — contact our team. No brief is too big or too small to start a conversation with.
