Outdoor drone shows in Istanbul
A record for Türkiye: 2,026 drones over the Bosphorus
The Gazi Košusu has been run every year since 1927. Founded in honour of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the race long ago outgrew sport: for Türkiye it is a living tradition and a piece of shared memory. That year it turned a hundred.
The night before the centennial race, held at Çırağan Palace, the sky above the Bosphorus told the story: a rider, a flowing Turkish flag, the silhouette of Atatürk, the centennial emblem. 2,026 drones. A new record for Türkiye.
The Galatasaray title celebration
At RAMS Park we staged a show for the celebration of Galatasaray’s 26th Süper Lig title. 1,000 drones formed player silhouettes, championship symbols and club imagery above the stadium, in front of more than 70,000 spectators, on 14 May 2026.
When a stadium can no longer contain the emotion, the celebration moves to the sky.
15 July above the strait
For the 10th anniversary of Democracy and National Unity Day we flew a large-scale show above the Bosphorus, watched simultaneously from both shores. The formation traced the strait, the bridge and the water below.
One of the world’s most recognisable skylines turned, for a few minutes, into a canvas for a light composition.
Brands above the Bosphorus
For an advertising campaign for Mercedes-Benz we worked over the Bosphorus near the Martyrs’ Bridge. Hundreds of drones formed the brand’s logo and silhouettes above the strait, with the flight programme built around the scale of the location.
At the 7th International Agents’ Meeting for Big Dutchman, 1,000 drones told the company’s story: the logo and brand imagery appeared above the city as the finale of a three-day gathering of partners from around the world, in June 2026.
What Türkiye requires of an operator
The system here is centralised and works differently from the Gulf. There the key question is usually who the local applicant is. In Türkiye the main question is whether the operator is registered and whether the pilots are registered in the SHGM system.
The regulator is the Sivil Havacılık Genel Müdürlüğü (SHGM), the Directorate General of Civil Aviation of Türkiye, and the regulatory basis is the SHT-İHA directive on the operation of unmanned aircraft.
A commercial operation with unmanned aircraft may be carried out only by an operator registered in the SHGM system. The pilots taking part have to hold a valid registration in the İHA Kayıt Sistemi, which requires either a Turkish identification number or a foreign national’s number issued to foreign nationals with official residence status.
A foreign operator cannot file directly: the work goes through a licensed Turkish partner. We have a representative office in Türkiye and file the applications ourselves.
What makes Istanbul demanding
The Bosphorus is a working strait with two shores, bridges and dense development on both sides. The site decides everything: where to launch from, what altitude to work at, and from which points the show will be visible at all.
Which is why the take-off point and the boundaries of the zone are fixed before the script. First it is clear where the flight can go, and only then does it follow what can be shown.
Parameters
Our fleet covers shows of up to 9,000 drones, and a programme can run up to 25 minutes. The drones operate in winds up to 12 m/s, in light rain and in temperatures from –10 °C to +50 °C.
The number of drones sets what the animation can do. Portrait compositions begin to look convincing from 1,000 drones. Text is the demanding part: allow 15 to 20 drones per letter, and often more.
The launch area is fenced off, and around the drones set out on the ground we keep a buffer of some 50 metres. Public liability is insured for two million US dollars, and the cover is worldwide.
Our shows in other Turkish cities
In Antalya 1,000 drones flew above The Land of Legends, and we run daily programmes for Delphin Hotels; more on our page about drone shows in Antalya. In Konya we worked twice: at the Science Festival and at the Bicycle Festival. A thousand drones closed the programme at the Selimiye Mosque in Edirne, 750 flew above Elazığ, 1,000 over Kocaeli Stadium in İzmit, and drones lit the sky above Cappadocia for the first time.
How approvals work in the country is set out in permits in Türkiye. Our services: outdoor drone shows, indoor drone shows, radio-controlled airships and custom flying objects.
Where to start
Tell us where and when the event takes place and what it marks: an anniversary, an opening, a national date, a product launch. The occasion shapes the script and the size of the programme, while the site and the date shape how long the approvals take. That is enough for us to come back with a timeline and a price.
