With more than 1.72 million visitors this year, Teknofest Istanbul has become the largest aviation festival in the world.

The second edition of Turkey's largest aerospace and technology fair attracted three times more visitors compared to last year.

In terms of number of visitors, Teknofest outperformed the Bournemouth Airshow held in the U.K. in 2009, which hosted 1.34 million visitors.

In addition to the number of visitors, the festival came to the fore with its diversity of events. While other international festivals focus on certain areas or a limited concept, Teknofest Istanbul hosted many events in different fields in the field of aviation and technology. A total of 410,000 square meters of space was used for the events this year.

Co-organized by Turkish Technology Team Foundation (T3 Foundation) and the Industry and Technology Ministry, the festival was supported by seven ministries, four directorates, 11 universities, 10 media outlets and 24 institutions. The stakeholders held various events in 115 different booths.

In addition, a total of 158 institutions and organizations, including municipalities, associations, foundations, companies, technoparks and science centers, also joined the festival.

It featured numerous activities and competitions, such as aviation shows, seminars, workshops, a drone championship, contests and concerts. Visitors to the festival, including students of all ages, flocked to take part in tech company activities to experience augmented reality, coding and digital technologies.

This year, Teknofest has broken a record with nearly 17,400 teams and 2,000 finalists, 50,000 contestant applications and 10,000 finalists from all 81 provinces of Turkey and 122 countries.

A total of TL 4 million of financial support was given to the contestants and TL 3 million was given away in prize money to young technology talents. Visitors had plenty to see, from unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), artificial intelligence (AI) software, civil and military aircraft, to weapons, rockets, flying cars, unmanned vessels, robots, autonomous and electric cars, engines and communication systems.