Almost 1,000 drones lit up Belfast harbour on Monday 30 March in a spectacular recreation of the RMS Titanic, marking the arrival of the BBC's Made Of Here campaign in Northern Ireland. The display, which used 950 drones, will be broadcast as part of a short film on BBC One and BBC Two Northern Ireland on Thursday 2 April at 8pm – the same time and date the Titanic set sail from Belfast in 1912.
The drone show was inspired by the four-part BBC factual series Titanic Sinks Tonight, produced by Belfast-based Stellify Media. The series, which aired in December 2025, has become the BBC's biggest history documentary of the 2025/26 season, drawing over two million viewers across the UK, with nearly half watching on BBC iPlayer. It used personal testimony from letters, interviews, memoirs and public enquiries to recount the sinking minute by minute.
The Made Of Here campaign celebrates BBC programming made across the UK, highlighting homegrown creativity from Cardiff to Belfast. Following activations in Liverpool, Birmingham and Glasgow, the Northern Ireland leg showcases local productions including Blue Lights, Line Of Duty, Hope Street and Funboys. The campaign will run on billboards, in press and cinema throughout April.
Simon Young, Head of History at BBC Factual Commissioning, said: 'We are so proud to have brought the Titanic back to Belfast in the shape of this extraordinary TV series. There's no better way to mark the construction of the most famous ship in history than by bringing Titanic to life in lights on Belfast harbour.' Keiran Doherty, co-CEO of Stellify Media, added: 'Filming at home in Belfast gave us something special – we weren't just imagining the story, we were standing in it.'
