Türkiye's biggest technology and aviation festival has, for the first time, pitched up in the country's southeast. Teknofest Southeast ran from Sept. 30 to Oct. 4 at Şanlıurfa GAP Airport, wrapping up after five days of air shows, robotics competitions and crowds drawn from Şanlıurfa and neighbouring provinces.
The stars of the show were the machines. Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI), Baykar, Roketsan, STM and OYAK all displayed hardware, with visitors crowding around the Kızılelma unmanned fighter jet, the Kaan combat aircraft and the Akıncı drone. Humanoid robots stole plenty of attention too — they performed a halay, the traditional Anatolian folk dance, a neat bit of showmanship that matched the festival's deliberate blend of high tech and local heritage.
That heritage angle is what makes the Şanlıurfa edition interesting for travellers. The organisers built a Göbeklitepe Experience Area on site, taking visitors through roughly 12 millennia of human history in a three-minute immersive ride. Şanlıurfa itself is home to the real Göbeklitepe, often described as the world's oldest known temple site, along with the sacred pool complex of Balıklıgöl and a food scene widely considered among Türkiye's best.
Selçuk Bayraktar, who chairs Teknofest and is CTO of drone maker Baykar, opened the festival by framing the city as both an ancient cradle of civilisation and a place building the future. President Erdoğan appeared on the Saturday, calling Şanlıurfa a "city of prophets" and citing its historic contributions to astronomy, medicine, mathematics and philosophy, plus scholars such as Al-Battani and thinkers from ancient Harran.
Some context on the festival itself: Teknofest launched in 2018 and this Şanlıurfa edition was its 15th. It has grown into a travelling event with editions in Northern Cyprus and Azerbaijan, plus a maritime spin-off, Teknofest Blue Homeland, now in its second year.
Why should a holidaymaker care? Because the pairing is genuinely rare. Few events let you watch drone displays in the morning and stand at a 12,000-year-old temple in the afternoon. Şanlıurfa remains far less visited than Istanbul or Cappadocia, so a festival leg here signals growing infrastructure and attention for the southeast — a good nudge to see the region before the crowds do.
