Tarkan’s Bayram

Tarkan’s special “bayram” concert in Mardan Palace, an ultra-luxury hotel in Antalya, has hit the headlines in Turkish media today. Depending on the Doğan News Agency’s report, Turkish daily Milliyet’s supplement “Cadde” called Tarkan “Bayram Şekeri” (Eid sweet) and highlighted that Tarkan’s performance on the last night of Kurban Bayram was excellent and the concert was a highly memorable event. Some local newspapers in Antalya also covered the Tarkan concert in Mardan Palace.

Like Milliyet, Turkish daily Sözcü covered the Tarkan concert on its second page but from a “money” perspective. Sözcü gave a list of Turkish artists, along with Tarkan, who gave concerts during the Bayram holiday and how much they made from these concerts. Sözcü’s claim is that Tarkan got 400, 000 TL from the concert whereas Gazete 5 wrote that the money Tarkan earned was 225,000 TL.

“Gazete 5” also covered the Tarkan concert on its website, reporting that Tarkan had lots of tea and juice before the concert, sang 21 songs and did not talk much between the songs but welcomed his audience at the beginning of the concert, wishing them a happy bayram. According to the same source, Tarkan stayed the night in the Presidential Suite of the hotel.

As announced on its webpage, the ultra-luxury hotel Mardan Palace offered its customers a “Sacrifice Feast Package”, which included 5-night accommodation, buffet breakfast and buffet dinner, a gala dinner on November 17^th with Didar Çalık and a second gala dinner on November 19^th with Tarkan.

Tarkan in the Citrus World

According to a report by Gulsen Cebeci Ballim in today’s Radikal, the Citrus Promotion Group has increased exports to Russia 40% through their collaboration with Tarkan and is now trying to promote their sales in the Middle East with some stars from Turkish TV series that have been quite popular in many Arab countries. Turkish soap operas have recently been regarded as Turkey’s cultural exports to Asian, Eastern European and Arab countries.

The report underlines that the promotional campaign with Tarkan to promote the sales of “Turkish oranges” has proven to be very effective and the contract with Tarkan has therefore been extended till the end of January 2011. The Group also said, in the report, that their agreement with Tarkan still continues in Ukraine and Azerbaijan.

As TPI readers might remember, while Tarkan was in custody, there were rumors that the Citrus Group might terminate or not renew their contract with Tarkan. However, it seems that there has always been demand for Tarkan.