The Buellton City Council on Monday approved a vendor to produce a drone show for Winterfest in December.

In a 4-1 vote, the council members agreed to host a drone show, with Councilmember Hudson Hornick as the opposing vote. Afterwards, council members selected Electric Sky to produce a 300-drone show for $29,500.

Winterfest, an annual Buellton event held by the Chamber of Commerce, will include food and holiday activities such as a Christmas tree lighting, on top of the drone show. This year’s event will be held on Dec. 6 at River View Park.

At the city’s previous meeting, council members debated between vendors Droneshow.com, Sky Elements, and Electric Sky, which all offered show sizes ranging from 100 to 400 drones. Pricing started at $15,000 and went as high as $52,000. 

The drone shows typically last between 10 to 15 minutes, with most being holiday-themed and including sponsorships to offset costs. 

Council members on Monday continued a debate about whether or not to host a drone show at all. Hornick argued that the show “should not be paid for by City Council,” and pointed towards local events which are typically funded through civic organizers as opposed to taxpayer money. 

“I just think there’s a lot of other things we could spend our money with,” Hornick said. 

Councilmember Elysia Lewis, who was absent from the previous discussion, advocated for the drone show along with the sponsorships. 

“There’s nothing stopping us from recouping some, if not all, or any of the costs of hosting a drone show, if we were to do things like sell sponsorships, or do some other type of thing that would allow us to recoup funds,” Lewis said at Monday’s meeting.

Vice Mayor Carla Mead also expressed support for the drone show, saying “people in Buellton deserve to have fun things happen.”

“We want to be the city that is like, ‘Hey, look at us. We are doing incredible things,’” Mead said.