Honours concert — opening night of the SAYGI1 series
Ora Arena, Istanbul · June 25, 2024
Honours concert — opening night of the SAYGI1 series
Ora Arena, Istanbul · June 25, 2024
Saygı is Turkish for respect. SAYGI1 — Babala TV and Sinerji Medya’s honours format, in the lineage of MTV Icon — pays it while the artist is alive to receive it: peers take over the catalogue for a night, and the artist watches his own songbook come back at him from the room. The format opened with Ceza.
SAYGI MEANS RESPECT.
For three hours, one arena heard one man’s songs in other voices. The lineup ran four generations deep: Cartel, Killa Hakan, Ayben, Şehinşah, Gazapizm, Anıl Piyancı, Yener Çevik, Server Uraz, Ozbi, Contra, Sefo, Çakal, Baneva and Lil Zey — from the pioneers to the newest name on the bill — with Gripin and Candan Erçetin crossing in from beyond the genre. Ceza watched from the room, and walked up last.
Client Babala TV, Sinerji Medya
Event SAYGI1 | Ceza — series opener
Venue Ora Arena, Istanbul
Date June 25, 2024
Scope Creative direction · Production design · Stage architecture · Multimedia · Show flow
Performers Cartel, Killa Hakan, Ayben, Şehinşah, Gazapizm, Anıl Piyancı, Yener Çevik, Server Uraz, Ozbi, Contra, Sefo, Çakal, Baneva, Lil Zey · Guests: Gripin, Candan Erçetin
Reach Sold-out arena · 15M+ views on YouTube
We led creative direction and production design. The brief was a hard one: one stage, sixteen acts, four generations of Turkish rap, and six thousand people who had come for the man at the front of it. The stage architecture, multimedia, choreography — a twenty-person dance ensemble — and show flow were conceived as one composition, so the microphone could change hands all night without the room losing tension. Nothing was re-set between acts; the stage carried every voice as movements of the same piece. The result read as a single work, not a lineup.
The night sold out Ora Arena; the format’s YouTube release has passed fifteen million views. SAYGI1 went on to honour Sertab Erener and Mor ve Ötesi — and the shape of those nights was set here.
