Adana Taste Festival: The Drone Show That Went Viral
SKD created a 1,000 drone show for the 10th International Adana Taste Festival, bringing the city’s food, music, history and cultural identity into the sky above the Seyhan River. The production formed part of a wider festival programme that also included lasers and fireworks, creating a large scale evening spectacle for thousands of spectators gathered around Merkez Park and along the river.
Hosted by the Adana Governor’s Office, the festival marked its 10th anniversary under the theme “Acısıyla Tatlısıyla 10. Yıl, On’ca Lezzet”, celebrating the character and culinary heritage of one of Türkiye’s most distinctive cities.
For SKD, the creative direction was clear from the beginning: the show needed to feel unmistakably Adana.
A drone show built around the city
Rather than treating the event only as a food festival, the production brought together the different elements that define Adana for the people who know it best.
The formations moved through references to the city’s gastronomy, music and cultural identity, combining familiar local symbols with large scale portrait work and festival branding. The result was a show that felt rooted in its setting rather than simply placed above it.
Among the most recognisable formations were Adana kebab and şalgam, two symbols immediately associated with the city’s food culture. The show also included the festival’s 10th anniversary identity, a map of Türkiye highlighting Adana and a formation inspired by one of the city’s historic landmarks.
These elements gave the production a strong local language. They were familiar enough to be recognised instantly, while the scale of the drone formations allowed them to be experienced in a completely different way.
The portraits that travelled across Türkiye
The moments that attracted the greatest attention were the portraits of Müslüm Gürses and Ferdi Tayfur.
Both artists hold an important place in Turkish music and popular culture, particularly within arabesque music, and their appearance in the sky created an immediate emotional connection with audiences. Müslüm Gürses also has a particularly strong cultural association with Adana, making his portrait especially meaningful within the context of the festival.
The formations quickly became some of the most talked about moments from the show. Footage spread widely beyond the festival itself, and the portraits helped the Adana drone show reach audiences across Türkiye.
That response was not simply a result of scale.
Portrait formations are technically demanding, but their impact depends on much more than technical execution. In Adana, the strength came from combining recognisable faces with a setting and audience that already had a relationship with what those figures represented.
People did not need an explanation. They recognised the portraits immediately, understood why they were there and felt something when they saw them.
That is what gave the show its viral quality.
Why local storytelling mattered
Drone shows are capable of creating enormous images in the sky, but scale alone does not create meaning.
For the Adana Taste Festival, the strongest creative decision was to build the show around references that belonged to the city. The kebab and şalgam formations were playful and immediately local. The Türkiye map placed Adana within a national context. The festival logo marked the significance of its 10th anniversary. The portraits connected the production to music, memory and shared cultural references.
Together, those elements created a show with a very specific identity.
It could not simply have been moved to another city and remained the same production.
That distinction matters to SKD. A bespoke drone show should respond to the place, audience and purpose behind the event. The technology provides the medium, but the story is what gives the production its character.
In Adana, that story was already there. The role of the creative was to identify the symbols that mattered, translate them into the sky and build a sequence that audiences could connect with immediately.
From Merkez Park to a much wider audience
Thousands of people experienced the show live around Merkez Park and the Seyhan River, with the drones taking off from the football field at the Adana Demirspor facilities.
But the reach of the production did not stop with the audience on site.
As videos of the show began circulating, particularly the Müslüm Gürses and Ferdi Tayfur portraits, the production found a much larger audience online. The combination of recognisable cultural figures, distinctly Adana references and large scale aerial imagery made the content highly shareable.
For an event production, that secondary audience can be significant.
A drone show exists live for a relatively short period of time, but the right formations can continue through social media, news coverage and audience generated content long after the drones have landed.
The Adana show demonstrated that clearly. The moments that travelled furthest were not abstract visual effects. They were the formations with the strongest cultural connection.
Celebrating more than gastronomy
The 10th International Adana Taste Festival was built around food, but the anniversary offered an opportunity to tell a broader story about the city.
SKD’s 1,000 drone production brought together the flavours, music, landmarks and cultural references that make Adana recognisable, while the wider event combined the drone show with lasers and fireworks as part of the evening programme.
The result was a production that worked on two levels: as a live spectacle for the thousands gathered beside the Seyhan River, and as visual content that continued to reach audiences across Türkiye after the event.
For SKD, that is one of the most interesting possibilities of drone storytelling.
The strongest productions do not begin with the question of how many drones can be placed in the sky. They begin with what the audience should recognise, understand or feel when they look up.
In Adana, the answer was the city itself.
For your bespoke drone light show, get in touch, SKD will make a tailored proposal to suit your event.
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