Istanbul's Concert Summer: From Zara Larsson to Jack White

Istanbul's open-air concert season has one centre of gravity this August, and it is nowhere near the old city. It is a 148-hectare pine forest on the northern edge of town called Bonus Parkorman, where Zara Larsson played her first ever Turkish show on 9 August and where Babylon Soundgarden brings Jack White, Wet Leg and The Kills on 22 and 23 August.

This guide covers both nights: what actually happened at the Larsson show, who is playing at Soundgarden, and the part most visitors get wrong. That last part is how to reach a forest venue in Maslak, and how to leave it at one in the morning.

Zara Larsson's first night in Turkey

Sunday 9 August, Bonus Parkorman, part of the Pozitif Vibrations series. Gates opened at 18:00, Turkish-American opener INJI played at 20:00, and Larsson took the stage at 21:30. It was her first performance in Turkey, after a decade of hits that had already made it here without her.

She had done her homework. Larsson walked on dancing to Tarkan's Dudu, a choice that got the loudest reaction of the night before she had sung a note. Earlier that day she had posted a photo of herself in cat-whisker makeup, captioned "Meow for Istanbul! City of cats", an unusually well-aimed nod to the street cats that function as Istanbul's unofficial mascots.

The set ran through the songs people came for: Lush Life, Never Forget You, Symphony, Ain't My Fault, Ruin My Life and Can't Tame Her. Between them she told the crowd something that had not come up elsewhere on the Midnight Sun tour: her first tattoo was done in Turkey, on a holiday when she was 16, with her best friend. Turkish media ran it the following morning.

The Lush Life tradition, and a fan named Berkant

Larsson closes most shows on this tour the same way: she picks one person out of the crowd and brings them up to dance through Lush Life with her and her professional dancers. It is the moment the phones go up at every date on the tour.

In Istanbul she chose a young man named Berkant, and that is precisely why the clip travelled. Larsson has nearly always pulled a young woman up for the slot, so the choice was itself the headline in the Turkish press. Berkant did not freeze either: he picked up the choreography on the spot and held his own next to the dance team for the length of the song. Video of the moment passed 7.8 million views and 20,000 likes within a day.

If you are going to a Parkorman show, there is a practical takeaway hiding inside a nice story: the good stuff happens at the end. Leaving three songs early to beat the exit crowd is how you miss it, which is an argument for sorting out your ride home before you arrive rather than after.

Next up: Babylon Soundgarden, 22 and 23 August

Same forest, much bigger footprint. Babylon Soundgarden is Pozitif's two-day festival across the Parkorman stages, and gates open at 15:00 on both days, far earlier than a single-headliner concert, because the point is to spend the afternoon in the trees before the main sets.

Saturday 22 August leans electronic and indie. TOMORA, the project pairing Norwegian singer AURORA with Tom Rowlands of the Chemical Brothers, headlines alongside Islandman, Vendredi Sur Mer, Rikas, Lin Pesto and the Istanbul West Side Collective.

Sunday 23 August is the rock day, and the bigger draw: Jack White headlines, with Wet Leg, The Kills, Radio Free Alice and Miskinler on the bill. Single-day tickets and two-day combined passes are both sold, through Biletix, Passo and Bubilet.

Getting to Bonus Parkorman

The venue sits inside Park Orman Tabiat Parkı at Büyükdere Caddesi No: 263, Maslak, in the Sarıyer district. This is the business-tower end of the city, roughly opposite the Levent skyline rather than anywhere tourists usually stay.

• Metro. Line M2 (Yenikapı-Hacıosman). Get off at Darüşşafaka, which leaves about a five-minute walk to the gate. Maslak station on the same line also works but puts you further out along Büyükdere Caddesi.

• Bus. The Fatih Orman stop on Büyükdere Caddesi is served by the 25G, 29A, 29C, 29D, 41, 42M, 47L, 59RK, 59RS, 62H and D2.

• Driving. There is paid parking on site, but it fills early on festival days and the single access road backs up badly in both directions around gate time.

Arriving is genuinely easy. It is the return leg that catches people out.

The part nobody plans for: getting home

Istanbul runs a night metro, but only on the nights linking Friday to Saturday and Saturday to Sunday, and at double fare. On every other night the M2 stops running around midnight.

Hold that against the calendar and the picture gets specific:

• 9 August was a Sunday. Larsson finished long after the last train, and there was no night service into Monday.

• 22 August is a Saturday, so the Saturday-to-Sunday night metro has you covered.

• 23 August, the Jack White night, is a Sunday. No night metro into Monday morning.

That leaves taxis, and Parkorman is close to the worst place in Istanbul to go looking for one. A forest venue empties through a narrow set of exits, several thousand people hit Büyükdere Caddesi inside the same ten minutes, and the drivers who do show up are in a position to pick and choose: refusing the fare, declining the meter, or naming a price. Ride-hailing apps surge for exactly the same reason. Standing on a dark avenue in Maslak at 01:00 negotiating in a language you do not speak is a bad end to a good night.

The alternative is to remove the variable entirely. A pre-booked private chauffeur service puts a named driver and vehicle at an agreed meeting point at an agreed time, at a fixed price quoted in euros before you travel. The driver waits when the encore runs long, and given how Larsson ends her shows, it will. For a group of four to eight, a single Mercedes Vito or minibus usually comes out at less per head than two surged taxis, and everyone stays together.

Flying in for the show

Both airports are a straightforward drive to Maslak, and both are far enough out that timing matters more than distance. Istanbul Airport (IST) is roughly 40 km away, typically 45 to 60 minutes. Sabiha Gökçen (SAW) is on the Asian side, roughly 50 km and usually an hour or more, since it means crossing a Bosphorus bridge. Both figures stretch considerably in Friday evening traffic, so build in a margin if you are landing on the day of a show.

Maslak itself is short on the things people come to Istanbul for, so most concert-goers stay in Beyoğlu, Şişli or along the Bosphorus and travel up for the evening. With a free daytime before an evening set, a private daily tour of Istanbul covers the historic peninsula at your own pace without leaving you too tired to enjoy the show. And for the nights with nothing on at Parkorman, a private Bosphorus cruise with dinner is the version of an Istanbul evening that does not involve a queue.

The short version

Zara Larsson opened Istanbul's 2026 open-air season on 9 August with a Tarkan entrance, cat makeup and a tattoo story nobody saw coming. Babylon Soundgarden closes it on 22 and 23 August with TOMORA and Jack White. Both happen in the same pine forest in Maslak, reachable in twenty minutes by metro and considerably harder to leave.

Book the ticket first. Then book the ride home, before the night the venue empties rather than during it.