A music publication hires a remote pilot to capture aerial B-roll of an outdoor amphitheater concert with 8,000 attendees. The drone weighs 1.2 pounds with a plastic propeller guard and has no FAA Category 2 or 3 declaration. What operating limitations apply?

Why →Operations over people under 14 CFR §§ 107.110 through 107.140 require the aircraft to meet one of four Categories. A 1.2-pound drone is not automatically Category 1 because Category 1 also requires no exposed rotating parts capable of lacerating skin and no FAA-declared safety issues. Without a Category 2, 3, or 4 declaration or a § 107.39 waiver, sustained flight over a non-participant crowd is prohibited regardless of altitude.

The trap →The above-100-feet option is the old pre-2021 waiver-free altitude logic. There is no altitude that makes over-crowd operation automatically legal. The permitted-event option confuses event permitting (ground-based) with FAA operations-over-people authority.

Field note →Many crowd-adjacent shots that look like overflight are shot from a lateral position with a long focal length. Plan the shot, not just the drone position. Category 2/3 declarations are manufacturer-driven and take time to obtain.