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Any frequent festivalgoer will tell you the worst part of the experience is the queue to be conquered before you can enjoy a drink while watching your favourite band.
But now popular local festival Oppikoppi, which takes place this weekend in Limpopo, has devised a novel solution – the beer drone.
The Oppikoppi beer drone is an eight-propeller helicopter-like device, the “octacopter”, able to carry multiple beers to thirsty attendees who can order the alcoholic beverages from an app on their Android phone or tablet.
Using their GPS location to find them, the drone is supposed to drop the beer (attached to a nifty parachute) at the feet of whoever ordered it.
The drone, developed by Darkwing Aerials, is still in its testing phase and festival organisers are “taking it slowly”, with only one or two drones going at a time.
But this seems to be leaving dusty festivalgoers parched and impatient. “We have ordered three times and yet nothing has been delivered!” one lamented on the Oppikoppi Facebook page. “Thirsty!”
“The wind might be a problem,” Margeaux Erasmus told us from the festival. “The beer comes down in a parachute and the wind blows it away.”
You’d think people would be a little more patient – after all, the beers are free!
See the drone being tested here:
-Kirstin Buick
Images: Facebook/Oppikoppi and Facebook/Darkwing Aerial Cinematography
