Festivals are an important aspect of urban culture all around the world. Festive events are organized in response to certain needs of a community. They offer entertainment for the local population and the visitors. Entertainment and commercial promotion taking place in festive space contributes to economic prosperity and urban development. Religious festivals are no exception to this characteristic of festive culture. Religious festivals have become more important sites for promoting the festival locations and attracted numerous tourists particularly with the emergence of an industry of festivals since the 1990s. This paper examines the connections and negotiations between religious and secular spheres within the context of certain religious festivals in Turkey. It relies on field work completed in Turkey, primary sources, and secondary sources. Among the religious festivals, Konya Festival commemorating Rumi, Aksehir Festival commemorating Nasreddin Hodja, and Hacibektas Festival commemorating Haci Bektas Veli are the oldest and most known ones in Turkey. These festivals were created around the “museumised” mausoleums of these saints and have made it possible to venerate them despite the fact that this old tradition had been abruptly suppressed in Turkey when all the mausoleums were closed to visits and rites of veneration on the mausoleum sites were banned in 1925. The entertainment aspect had been a part of these festivals since their initiation. In Aksehir, donkey races and Nasreddin Hodja riding his donkey backwards during the procession established ambivalent relations between saint veneration and entertainment. Comedic sketches, music concerts and folkloric dances attracted larger audiences with stronger secular expectations. Emergence of consumerism even led Nasreddin Hodja to promote local tourism and be represented as a playful figure with an impish look on his face. In Hacibektas staging Alevi/Bektashi religious-ritual dance, “semah,” as folkloric dance raised a controversy about the nature of staged-semah. Similarly, in Konya, staging Mevlevi ritual dance, “sema,” as a cultural performance blurred the line between saint veneration and touristic promotion of Konya. These festivals have offered valuable opportunities for rediscovery and articulation of marginalized, suppressed identities and for the public demonstration of the suppressed mystic rites and rituals. Meanwhile, they initiated a process of secularization of these religious figures and their traditions and helped economic growth. As such the potential of religious festivals for urban development has underscored the tensions between the religious and secular spheres. This paper looks into this historical process and discuses the negotiations between the sacred and secular spaces.