Drone roof survey of the Kings Theatre, Southsea

Sited where Exmouth Road meets Albert Road, the Kings Theatre isn't in the quietest of spots. The narrow pavements aren't lenient to pilots looking for take-off zones, and dense residential housing made line-of-sight a challenge. A tip from a local café led us to a perfectly-placed communal terrace in a nearby block of flats: away from traffic, with an ideal vantage point for keeping an eye on our drone.

We flew on a Sunday morning using our sub-250g Mavic Mini 2, whose slight profile causes less disturbance to neighbours and the hundreds of birds roosting in the rafters of the historic theatre. We drew the perimeter of the Kings Theatre in our specialist drone software, then sent the Mini 2 off to capture full high-res coverage of the beautiful 1907 structure.

Mere hours later, we'd uploaded the photos to our client server and shared them with the talent at Pritchard Architecture. As we always preach: capturing aerial visuals for construction and conservation projects is astoundingly fast, efficient, cost-effective, safe, and productive. The turnaround can often be same-day, imagery is sharp, and flights can be repeated to create an historic log of progressing work.