Truist Stadium in Winston-Salem Drones Home For The Holidays

Brian DeAngelis drones on about Truist Stadium in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The President and General Manager of the Winston-Salem Dash minor league baseball team has turned drone shows, private events and movie nights into off-season revenue for the downtown stadium.

“Believe it or not, here we are operating a baseball stadium, and the minority of what we do is run baseball games,” says DeAngelis. “We have 66 home baseball games. But just looking at December alone, we have 40 Christmas parties.”

The 5,500-cap. stadium opened in 2010 and is owned by the city. The facility is operated by the Winston-Salem Dash, which is part of Diamond Baseball Holdings, the sports management company that operates nearly 50 Minor League Baseball teams in the United States and Canada.

Capitalizing on fixed seating, concessions, available parking and wide-open spaces, the venue decided to try doing a drone show in 2024.

“I didn’t know the first thing about drones,” admits DeAngelis. “I’d seen some people do maybe a logo display, something like that during the game, but it wasn’t really the full play or picture. So that was a first for Minor League Baseball. We were the first ones to actually do that.”

The drone show strategy worked. Following a sold-out holiday show in 2024, the stadium has partnered with Celestial to present “A Christmas Carol” on Dec. 20.  

“The drone show is a little bit different in that it’s obviously a full stadium effect,” explains DeAngelis. “It was a big risk, for sure, but it was an amazing turnout and show for our community. So, we’re happy to bring it back this year.”

DeAngelis, who just wrapped his fourth season with the Dash who are the South Atlantic League affiliate of the Chicago White Sox, calls the 45-minute production “a play in the sky” with lights, audio, voice actors and music.

“You don’t really understand the scale until you see it,” says DeAngelis. “These things are flying from 10 feet to 400 feet in the air. It’s making images larger than most of the buildings in town. And when you are really that close to it and you can kind of hear the buzz of the drones and you’re there with all your friends and it’s Christmas time – it really is a special moment for everybody. …I think you are going to see more and more of these types of shows very soon.”

The set up works better than a traditional concert with little to no impact on the field and timing that doesn’t interfere with a heavy baseball schedule in warmer months.

“We’ve done concerts in the past,” continues DeAngelis, “But concerts can be a little tricky with baseball. It gives you a little risk on the field.”

In November, the stadium hosted a free community movie night featuring “Wicked: Part One” on the Truist Stadium video board. Admission was complimentary with the Dash, and local businesses Candor Home and Candor Roofing collectively donating $1 per attendee to support education initiatives raising $4,451 for Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools. The event marked the first movie shown on Truist Stadium’s newly renovated video board but won’t be the last.

“It’s a way for us to give back to the community and get people back to the ballpark and utilize this great asset that we all have,” says DeAngelis. “So we’re going to release coming up here pretty soon a series of dates next year. We are targeting four or five movies some are classics and baseball related but then other ones we do will be new and topical and something you can see here instead of going to a theater.”