LEFKOSA, TRNC

Türkiye’s premier aviation, space, and tech festival, TEKNOFEST, hosted 225,000 visitors in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), bringing the total visitor count of the event to nearly 10.7 million since its inception in 2018.

The event took place on May 1-4 at Ercan International Airport in Lefkosa with a variety of events, such as tech competitions and flight demonstrations.

It hosted a myriad of different activities, including tech competitions, workshops for children aged 6-14, aircraft exhibition, planetarium movie screenings, a space exhibition and simulation experience areas, as well as historical exhibitions of the Cyprus Peace Operation and the Turkish Resistance Organization.

Several acrobatic aircraft demonstrations were on display at the event, ranging from the Turkish Stars to SoloTurk, as well as unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) demonstrations.

A total of over 47,000 contestants from 22 countries applied to the competitions at the event. Some 268 finalist teams of 1,083 contestants competed.

TEKNOFEST TRNC is the largest aviation, space, and tech festival that is held under the TRNC Presidency and organized by the Turkish Technology Team, or T3, and the Turkish Ministry of Industry and Technology. Anadolu is TEKNOFEST TRNC’s global communications partner.

Muhammet Saymaz, secretary-general of TEKNOFEST, told Anadolu that the event is “one of Türkiye’s favorite brands.”

“There is no bigger festival on this scale in the TRNC,” he said.

Saymaz stated that the team organizing the event wanted to bring it to the TRNC as they did in Türkiye for years now and created experiences with workshops and demonstrations for the youth of the TRNC.

“The event made us see how meaningful it was for us to come here, as we saw families who came with hope for the future,” he added.

11 years of TEKNOFEST

TEKNOFEST opened its doors to 550,000 people in Istanbul in 2018, and the number of visitors in the megacity grew to 1.72 million in 2019.

The event was held behind closed doors in 2020 in the southeastern province of Gaziantep due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The festival attracted 1 million visitors in Istanbul in 2021, and it was held abroad for the first time in Baku in 2022 with 300,000 visitors.

TEKNOFEST’s Black Sea Region event in the northern Turkish province of Samsun attracted 1.25 million people in 2022.

The event welcomed over 4.5 million visitors in total by the 100th Anniversary of the Turkish Republic in 2023, with 2.5 million in Istanbul, 943,000 in Ankara, and 1.1 million in the southwestern province of Izmir.

Last year, some 1.1 million visitors came to the TEKNOFEST event held in the Central Anatolian province of Adana.

The TRNC rendition of the event attracted 225,000 visitors this year, leading to a total of nearly 10.7 million.

As for the number of contestants participating in the festival since its inception, some 20,000 people applied in 2018 in Istanbul, 50,000 in Istanbul again in 2019, and 100,000 in Gaziantep in 2020.

The number of people applying to compete was 200,000 in Istanbul in 2021, 5,636 in Baku in 2022, and 600,000 in Samsun the same year.

In Istanbul, Ankara, and Izmir, 1 million people applied to compete in 2023 and some 1.65 million applied in Adana last year, while some 47,000 people competed at TEKNOFEST TRNC this year, bringing up the total to nearly 3.7 million contestants since 2018.

Some 4,333 teams applied to take part in the competitions in Istanbul in 2018, 17,373 in Istanbul in 2019, 20,912 in Gaziantep in 2020, 44,912 in Istanbul in 2021, 1,010 in Baku in 2022, 154,000 in Samsun in 2022, 337,000 in Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir combined in 2023, and 790,000 in Adana in 2024.

Some 47,000 teams competed in the TRNC, bringing the total to 1.4 million since 2018.