ABOUT OUR SAN FRANCISCO WORK
San Francisco Drone Videography and Live Broadcast
Outside Lands in Golden Gate Park is our San Francisco credit. Air Views Media flew drone coverage for the festival's Prime Video live broadcast, including over-the-crowd flights under our §107.39 waiver and an on-stage flight during Sabrina Carpenter's 2024 set. The same crew flies Austin City Limits and EDC Las Vegas for their Hulu live broadcasts. We're based in Augusta, GA, and the Bay Area is one of the regions we serve coast to coast. Bay Area jobs are booked like any other trip on our calendar: we bring the crew, the aircraft and the paperwork. We fly live aerial broadcast, concerts and festivals, FPV cinematography, micro-drone fly-through tours and creative and film work, and we help operators with FAA waivers. Before we plan shots, we check SFO airspace and who owns the launch site, because land rules matter here as much as airspace. Tell us the site, the stages and where the feed needs to go. See every city we fly.
Outside Lands, Golden Gate Park
Outside Lands fills Golden Gate Park's meadows and the Polo Field with stages, trees and fog. On festival broadcasts like this we typically run over-crowd FPV drones for close passes, cinema drones for the wide shots and feeds cabled to the broadcast truck.
Live festival flying in the park has its own challenges: tree cover limits launch spots, wind off the ocean changes through the day, and stages are spread across a large area. A multi-person team lets us keep a drone ready at each stage the director cares about. More on concert and festival drones and our EDC Las Vegas case study.
Airspace and land rules in the Bay Area
San Francisco sits under SFO's Class B airspace, with Oakland and San Jose adding controlled airspace across the Bay. We confirm FAA authorization for the exact site before planning shots.
Golden Gate Park is a city park run by SF Recreation and Parks. Much of the shoreline around the Golden Gate, including parts of the Presidio and Crissy Field, is national park land, where launching or landing a drone is not allowed without National Park Service permission. We check who owns the launch site before the shoot. Oracle Park and Levi's Stadium carry the FAA's standing stadium restriction during MLB, NFL and major college football games.
How we run a Bay Area festival day
Each stage that the director wants covered gets a pilot and a visual observer. The over-crowd FPV drones handle close passes over the audience and the stage, the cinema drone handles the wide shots, and the feeds are cabled to the truck. One crew member stays at the truck to manage the feeds through the day. If you also want social content, we can run a content team alongside the broadcast team, on its own flight plan.
Waivers and broadcast setup
Air Views Media is run by Clark Lupton, an FAA Part 107 certified pilot since 2017. Our FAA Part 107 remote pilots operate under FAA waivers for flight over people (§107.39), over moving vehicles (§107.145), multiple aircraft (§107.35), beyond visual line of sight (§107.31), operation from a moving vehicle (§107.25) and operating limitations (§107.51). For live shows, our setup puts a COFDM camera transmitter on a micro FPV drone carrying a PROTON 4K FLEX camera, so the truck can shade it (iris, color, exposure) through Cyanview like any other camera, with feeds cabled into the truck. See our FPV live broadcast setup and FAA waiver consulting.
San Francisco drone questions
Have you flown Outside Lands?
Yes. We flew drone coverage for the festival's Prime Video live broadcast, including over-the-crowd flights under our §107.39 waiver and an on-stage flight during Sabrina Carpenter's 2024 set.
Can you fly over the crowd in Golden Gate Park?
Yes, under our FAA §107.39 waiver for flight over people, with the event's written security sign-off and the park's permission.
Can you fly near the Golden Gate Bridge?
Much of the land around the bridge is national park land, where launching a drone needs National Park Service permission, and the area is under SFO's Class B airspace. We plan any bridge shot around both.
Can you fly at Oracle Park or Levi's Stadium on game day?
Only with FAA approval and the venue's agreement, because both are covered by the standing stadium flight restriction during games.
Do you shoot brand and tech work in the Bay Area?
Yes. We shoot FPV and one-take micro-drone fly-throughs for launches, offices and venues, as well as live event coverage.
Are you based in San Francisco?
No. We're based in Augusta, GA, with a second location in Lynchburg, VA, and we travel to the Bay Area for festivals, events and productions.
Related pages: Los Angeles · California · Las Vegas · Seattle · All locations
Call 706-284-8364, email clark@airviewsmedia.com or request a quote.