The annual Hacıbektaş Anma Töreni (Commemoration Ceremony) takes place each year in mid-August and is one of the largest Alevi gatherings in Turkey. Tens of thousands of people descend on the town for three days of religious ceremony, music, and political speeches — the Alevi community uses the festival as an occasion to assert its identity and voice its concerns in Turkish public life.
The centrepiece is the cem ceremony — a communal ritual that combines prayer, music, and the semah dance performed by men and women together, a practice that distinguishes Alevi Islam from the Sunni mainstream. Musicians play the bağlama (saz), poetry is recited, and the proceedings have a quality that is more communal gathering than formal religious service. If you visit during the festival, expect the town to be completely transformed: crowded, loud, politically charged, and deeply moving if you understand the context.