Mysuru Dasara's 3,473-Drone Peacock, Flown by an IIT Delhi-Incubated Start-up on 18 October 2026, Is Now Guinness World Records' Largest Aerial Display of a Bird

On the night of Sunday, 18 October 2026, 3,473 drones rose over the Torchlight Parade Ground at Bannimantap in Mysuru and formed a dancing peacock. Guinness World Records lists the result as the largest aerial display of a bird formed by multirotors or drones, and gives the title to Chamundeshwari Electricity Supply Corporation Limited (CESC) and the Energy Department of the Government of Karnataka. The drones were flown by BotLab Dynamics, a company incubated at IIT Delhi, as part of the evening drone show of Mysuru Dasara.

What the Guinness page says

The record page reads 3,473 as the count, Mysuru as the place and 18 October 2026 as the date. Its note says the peacock formation “remained visible for over 20 seconds” and that the attempt was made as part of Mysuru’s Dussehra celebrations. The peacock is India’s national bird.

Star of Mysore and ETV Bharat both report that Guinness World Records officials flew in from London, certified the formation after the show and handed the certificate to L. Lokesh, CESC’s technical director, and his team. The certificate text, as Star of Mysore and Deccan Chronicle quote it, matches the online page: the title was achieved by CESC and the Energy Department “in Mysuru on October 18, 2026.”

The state’s energy minister said, in ETV Bharat’s report, that the record is “a tribute to the technical expertise, hard work and coordinated efforts of the CESC officials and staff.”

The show on the ground

The official Dasara portal lists the drone show at 8 pm on 17, 18, 20 and 21 October at the Panjina Kavayathu ground, the Torchlight Parade Ground, in Bannimantap. The record attempt was the 18 October show, the second of the four.

Star of Mysore counts 12 aerial displays that evening. It lists a tribute to the actor Dr Vishnuvardhan, the solar system, a soldier holding the Tricolour, a butterfly, a lion, the Sudarshana Chakra, Shiva Tandava, Nandi, the golden howdah elephant, the peacock and finally Goddess Chamundeshwari. The Indian Express and Siasat name the same lion, butterfly, soldier and Chamundeshwari formations. Singers Manikanth Khadri, Anuradha Bhat and Hansika Iyer performed before the drones went up, according to Star of Mysore and ETV Bharat.

Star of Mysore reports more than 25,000 spectators. BotLab’s own press release gives a larger figure, saying attendance went above 40,000 against a formal seated capacity of 33,500 over the first two evenings, with more than 20,000 more watching from outside the ground, from terraces and balconies. The two counts cover different things and are not reconciled.

The company that flew it

BotLab Dynamics was founded in 2016 and incubated at IIT Delhi. The Foundation for Innovation and Technology Transfer (FITT), IIT Delhi’s technology transfer body, describes it as a drone swarm start-up founded by two Engineering Physics alumni of the institute, with hardware and software built in-house. Electronics For You, in an interview with co-founder Dr Sarita Ahlawat, names three founders (Anuj Kumar Barnwal, Sarita Ahlawat and Tanmay Bunkar) and says the team redesigned its flight controllers, motor controllers and GPS modules in 2019 after imported hobby-grade parts failed in heat, dust and wind during field tests at Pokhran.

On 29 January 2022 the company flew about 1,000 drones at the Beating Retreat ceremony in New Delhi. Defence ministry officials told ThePrint before the event that India would be the fourth country, after China, Russia and the United States, to stage an indigenously designed and conceptualised drone show of that size. FITT’s page records the same 1,000-drone flight, controlled by a single user.

Ahlawat said in the BotLab release that forming the national bird with “Indian-made drones for the people of Karnataka” was a proud moment for the team.

How the Mysuru fleet grew

BotLab’s release says it has flown the Dasara drone show since 2022, making 2026 its fifth consecutive year, and gives the fleet sizes: 250 drones in 2022 and 2023, 1,500 in 2024, and a tiger formed by 2,983 drones in 2025. The 2025 tiger was also a Guinness title, in the category for the largest aerial display of a mammal. BotLab’s own account of that show says the number to beat was 1,985 drones, and that a record attempt allowed no more than 5 per cent of the drones to fail.

For 2026 the plan was larger still. Star of Mysore says officials had intended to fly 3,500 drones and fell short by 27, which is the gap between 3,500 and the 3,473 that formed the peacock.

The bird title had a holder before Mysuru. Star of Mysore and Deccan Chronicle report the previous bird record as about 3,000 drones in Libya, which they date to 30 September 2026. Their date could not be checked against a Guinness page for the Libyan entry, so it stands here as their reporting.

Where the sources differ

Deccan Chronicle’s report gives 3,476 drones in its text, while the Guinness page, BotLab, Star of Mysore, ETV Bharat, the Indian Express and Siasat give 3,473. This article uses the figure on the Guinness page. Deccan Chronicle also puts the shortfall from 3,500 at 24, which follows from its own count. Its report also quotes a BotLab post that says 3,473.

BotLab’s press release counts the peacock as the company’s eighth Guinness World Record. That tally is the company’s. The release also cites a 154 per cent rise in footfall over 2025 for the drone shows. No other source opened for this article repeats it, so the figure is left out of the account above.

As of 5 November 2026, the Guinness page still lists 3,473 drones, achieved on 18 October 2026, as the record.