Photography by Dan Schwalm; © 2021 PennFIRST
PHILADELPHIA — Penn Medicine will light up the night sky over Philadelphia on Wednesday night, October 27, with a spectacular show of 300 drones in celebration of the opening of its new hospital, the Pavilion, this weekend. The dynamic light show will be visible from up to five miles from the launch site over Fairmount Park’s Lemon Hill area during two 15-minute shows, which start at 7 p.m. and 8:15 p.m.
The drone show will feature interactive components — such as a “QR code in the sky” scannable from up to three-quarters of a mile away, including from the Fountain of the Seahorses behind the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Lloyd Hall Recreation Center at 1 Boathouse Row — to learn about the transformation of medical care underway in the Pavilion, all leading viewers to a chance to win a Philly sports prize package including game tickets and merchandise for the city’s top professional teams. The prize package includes watching a game with former pro football player Brian Westbrook.
Notable Philadelphia celebrities including pro football stars Westbrook and Jalen Hurts, musicians and more will be part of the effort, sharing messages via social media on how to engage with the show and through videos and animations. Follow @PennMedicine on Twitter and Instagram and the hashtags #PennMed10 and #PennMedicine to learn more.
Penn Medicine’s new Pavilion, the largest capital project in Penn’s history and one of the largest hospital projects underway in the United States, opens Saturday, Oct. 30. The 17-story building, an expanded footprint of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania’s campus in University City, houses 504 private patient rooms and 47 operating rooms. A transformative project that puts medicine on the map as a force for conservation and sustainability, the facility is the largest certified project in the world to achieve Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Healthcare Gold Certification. The $1.6 billion Pavilion is poised to serve as the launch pad for Penn Medicine’s next generation of pioneering advances in patient care.
Editor’s Note: Penn Medicine employees (University of Pennsylvania Health System or University of Pennsylvania-employed) and members of their immediate families are ineligible to win the Philadelphia sports prize package. Full Terms & Conditions are available.
Penn Medicine is one of the world’s leading academic medical centers, dedicated to the related missions of medical education, biomedical research, excellence in patient care, and community service. The organization consists of the University of Pennsylvania Health System (UPHS) and Penn’s Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine, founded in 1765 as the nation’s first medical school.
The Perelman School of Medicine is consistently among the nation's top recipients of funding from the National Institutes of Health, with $580 million awarded in the 2023 fiscal year. Home to a proud history of “firsts,” Penn Medicine teams have pioneered discoveries that have shaped modern medicine, including CAR T cell therapy for cancer and the Nobel Prize-winning mRNA technology used in COVID-19 vaccines.
The University of Pennsylvania Health System cares for patients in facilities and their homes stretching from the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania to the New Jersey shore. UPHS facilities include the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, Chester County Hospital, Doylestown Health, Lancaster General Health, Princeton Health, and Pennsylvania Hospital—the nation’s first hospital, chartered in 1751. Additional facilities and enterprises include Penn Medicine at Home, GSPP Rehabilitation, Lancaster Behavioral Health Hospital, and Princeton House Behavioral Health, among others.
Penn Medicine is an $11.9 billion enterprise powered by nearly 49,000 talented faculty and staff.