The champagne picnic, the drone and the baroque stage
July, a UNESCO-listed historic town in Bohemia. A wedding party of 30 has booked you for an afternoon in the castle gardens and the historic centre. Three days before, the planner sends the final requests: (1) a champagne picnic at 17:00 on the castle garden lawn, blankets and catering brought in by the party; (2) their photographer will fly a small consumer drone over the historic centre and up past the castle tower for aerial shots of the couple; (3) the bride would like to step over the rope onto the baroque theatre stage for a single photograph. She adds: “everyone does the drone shots here, it is fine.” Your contract says only “guiding and accompaniment, 5 hours”.
1. Assess each of the three requests. For each: yes, no, or conditional - and what is the professional procedure that gets you there?
Read the worked answer
None of the three is answerable as a yes/no without first asking the site administrator. That is the procedure: separate the request from the permission.
- (1) Picnic on the lawn - conditional. It is not a conservation emergency, but it is a maintained heritage garden with visitor rules, and 30 people with blankets, glass, food waste and a caterer's equipment will mark and compact turf. Procedure: ask the garden administration for a permitted location and time (a defined lawn edge, a terrace, or an approved catering area), confirm waste removal and glass policy, and put it in writing to the planner. If the answer is no, you offer the alternative you already found - a courtyard or terrace of a partner restaurant 200 m away - before the planner has to solve it.
- (2) Drone - no, on these facts. Three separate gates have to be passed: the drone operator's own compliance (open-category rules severely restrict flying over people, in urban areas and near people who are not involved), the airspace rules for the area, and the site administrator's permission for the property. The couple, the guests and the town's visitors are all “people not involved”. You cannot fix this in three days, and it is not your authorisation to give.
- (3) Stepping onto the stage - no. Historic stage machinery and painted scenery behind a rope exist behind a rope for a reason; that rope is a conservation barrier and a safety barrier. The alternative is a photograph from the permitted side of the rope, or a conducted tour of the theatre if the site runs one - booked, not improvised.
Say what you can do in every case, so that the refusal arrives attached to a solution.
2. The planner repeats “everyone does the drone shots here, it is fine” and pushes back. Script your refusal and explain the reasoning behind how you phrase it.
Read the worked answer
Script (three moves: acknowledge, explain the rule, give the alternative):
“I understand - the aerial shots of the square would be spectacular, and I have seen them too. The rules here do not turn on whether other people have flown; they turn on flying over people who have not agreed to it, and on the castle's own permission, and I do not have either. What I can do is get your photographer onto the terrace above the gardens at 18:30, which gives almost the same angle from the ground, and I can ask the castle office today whether a permitted operator is available for a later date.”
Why it is phrased that way:
- Acknowledge first. A flat “no” invites the planner to treat you as an obstacle to be routed around, and they will simply fly it anyway with someone else holding the camera.
- Frame it as a rule, not a preference. “The rules do not turn on whether other people have flown” closes the “everyone does it” argument without calling the client dishonest.
- Say what you cannot authorise. The point is not that you disapprove; it is that the permission is not yours to give. That is a structurally different refusal and much harder to argue with.
- Attach an alternative in the same breath. The client hears “here is the picture you actually wanted”, not “here is my policy”.
- Put it in writing the same day, politely, so that the request and your answer are on record before the event rather than after.
3. The photographer launches the drone anyway during the garden walk. What do you do in the moment, and what is your exposure afterwards?
Read the worked answer
In the moment, in this order:
- Tell him to land it - now. Short, flat, no debate: “Land it. Now.” Land the aircraft first, discuss second; every second it is up over people is the risk you are trying to stop.
- Move the group out from directly underneath and away from the couple's immediate area, calmly, as if repositioning for a photo.
- Find the site staff and tell them yourself, before they find you. You are the visible responsible adult on the ground; being the one who reports it is a completely different posture from being caught.
- Do not confiscate anything, do not touch the equipment, do not escalate physically. You are a guide, not a police officer.
- Note the time, the location, who flew it, and what you said, while it is fresh.
Afterwards:
- Written report to the planner the same evening: what was requested, what you advised, what happened, what you did.
- Check your own contract - it should contain a clause that the client will comply with site rules and airspace law, and it does not yet. Add it for the next booking.
- Exposure: the drone operator carries the administrative liability; the site may expel the whole party, and the castle or garden administration may suspend the agency's booking rights for the season. Your own insurance will not respond to an act you facilitated or ignored. Your professional risk is not the fine, it is being the guide whose group the site remembers - which costs you and the agency future access you cannot buy back.