The doors to TEKNOFEST, Turkey’s biggest aerospace and technology festival, opened on Thursday at Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport.
The five-day festival includes a variety of events, including technology competitions, air shows, concerts, and lectures.
The goal of TEKNOFEST is to increase interest in technology in Turkey. The original fair drew 500,000 visitors, while the 2019 fair drew 1.72 million, a global record for an aviation-themed event.
The first TEKNOFEST outside of Istanbul was organized in 2020 by Turkey’s southeastern province of Gaziantep, however it was held virtually owing to pandemic limitations.
TEKNOFEST will return to Istanbul, Turkey’s economic metropolis, in 2021.
It drew 1.25 million visitors last year when it was hosted by the Black Sea province of Samsun.
The event’s first international edition was also held in Baku, Azerbaijan’s capital, last year.
Since 2018, tens of thousands of athletes and teams have applied to the event in dozens of categories.