Halo is one of the highest-grossing gaming franchises in history— with 77 million games sold and 6 billion in global sales.

Following two decades of fandom, Paramount Plus was set to debut its television adaptation on its streaming platform in the spring of 2022. Like the Xbox game, Halo The Series was set to dramatize an epic 26th-century conflict between humanity and an extraterrestrial threat, weaving deeply drawn personal stories with action, adventure, and a richly imagined vision of the future.

To build momentum and buzz for the series, Paramount Plus brought the Halo universe and its characters’ latest journeys to a broader, general entertainment audience, while recruiting potential subscribers with interests in gaming, action, and sci-fi along the way.

The Halo franchise centers on an interstellar war in the skies above us between humanity and a militant alliance of aliens known as The Covenant. So we decided to take Halo to the real skies of Austin, Texas during SXSW 2022. A series of surreal drone light shows brought the Halo The Series to life in the night sky, giving crowds a glimpse into the action-packed adventure and fan-favorite characters, including Master Chief and Cortana, that awaited viewers. Each drone show culminated with a giant scannable QR code that hovered above the city, sending fans to Halo The Series’ site to stream the latest trailer and engage with the in-world narrative.

To continue to build on the Halo franchise and ensure record-breaking levels of season one viewership, our strategy was two-fold. We looked to excite and evangelize the hardcore gamer fans who have followed Halo through its various iterations, while tapping into an emerging technology that would stop casual viewers in their tracks.

To accomplish this, we identified the SXSW festival as the launchpad for the series. Renowned for being an annual showcase of innovative technology and large-scale brand activations, SXSW was set to return in a big way for 2022 – its first non-virtual event in three years – continuing to offer audiences best-in-class marketing examples for breakthrough work. This grand re-emergence of live events provided Paramount Plus with the opportunity to play with format, scale, and what shared experiences mean on both an accessible and monumental level.

Halo The Series’ drone shows were spectacles created to be something both festival goers and the entire city of Austin could marvel at.

Our six stunts ran from March 13th through March 14th. It took over 400 drones flying in synchronized formation to bring Austin’s first-ever drone light shows to life. Our eight aerial designs individually programmed each drone with a specific flight path.

At 300ft tall and 600ft wide – the height of the Statue of Library and length of approximately two American football fields – the drone shows reached far beyond the festival. The QR codes had a scannability radius of one mile, while the stunts could be seen two miles beyond the heart of Austin.

While the SXSW festival has become synonymous with long queues and exclusive events, our drone shows required no ticket to attend, becoming both the buzziest and most accessible show in town.

While other entertainment brands activated on the grounds of SXSW, Paramount Plus was able to stand out from the clutter by leveraging the biggest billboard at its disposal: the skies of Austin. With many touting that the Halo drone show was “the best thing I’ve seen at SXSW,” it wasn’t long before our Texas spectacle became a global phenomenon. Nearly every major entertainment publication and broadcast news network documented Halo’s aerial invasion, including The Today Show, generating 200MM earned media impressions overall.

Following its March 24th debut, Halo became the most-watched series premiere ever in the U.S. and internationally on Paramount Plus’ platform. Our “dystopian-yet-impressive” (The Hollywood Reporter) stunts reimagined experiences for the masses and proved that, when it comes to promotion, not even the sky’s the limit.