Annual · Dubai
Dubai World Trade Centre, the February slot in the AW cycle. Affiliate managers from Tbilisi and Batumi land at DXB, walk into a hall they know, and have one shot at merch that reads clean and travels back home in a carry-on. We plan that programme for Caucasus teams each year.
The Affiliate World Dubai stop is a recurring date on the calendar for Georgian affiliate teams, and most groups treat it as their anchor Gulf event. It is the leg of the AW cycle that fits the Caucasus flying pattern best, and the audience mix — networks, traffic sources, operator affiliate programmes — overlaps with the kind of conversations Tbilisi affiliate managers want to have in person each year.
This page is the standing brief for Caucasus teams planning AW Dubai, distinct from the year-specific 2027 page. The merch brief for AW Dubai does not change much year over year; the dates move, the show-floor plan moves, and the stand footprint shifts, but the production-and-delivery playbook for a Tbilisi or Batumi team is broadly stable. We update the playbook as the organiser publishes each year's exhibitor manual and as UAE import rules for the relevant SKUs evolve.
Most Caucasus teams that attend AW Dubai treat the trip as a combined commercial-and-meet-up swing — a few days in Dubai for the show, often followed by a working session in the same hotel before flying back to TBS. That rhythm gives the merch a job to do: it has to perform on the stand on day one and day two, and it has to be packable for the return flight without breaking. The order mix that survives that pattern is heavier on compact, durable items (notebooks, pens, drinkware, slim tech) and lighter on anything fragile or oversized.
Polos in two colourways, a lightweight zip layer, and T-shirts sized across the booth team. Name plates in English plus the stand number on the back are standard. We size for the full shift rotation rather than just the on-booth crew.
Lanyards, heavy cotton tote bags with internal pocket, A5 notebooks with pen loop, metal ballpoint pens, and 500ml insulated bottles. Quantities sized for the full two-day show-floor footfall.
Power banks, USB-C cables, slim cardholders and the occasional branded AirPods-style case. Reserved for qualified affiliate-manager conversations and stored behind the counter.
A6 leather-look notebooks with metal pen, compact gift boxes with Georgian-origin items, slim cardholders for the speaker pack. Delivered by hand to the named contact.
DWTC is a controlled-access venue with a strict loading-dock policy and a freight-slot allocation that scales with stand size. For a Tbilisi team the production split is the same as for the other Gulf legs: apparel, paper, tote bags and pens produced in Tbilisi or Batumi and shipped by air freight into DXB; electronics, drinkware and metal items from a UAE-based regional partner with DWTC delivery experience.
Customs paperwork for the Georgia leg is straightforward for apparel and paper; electronics need UAE conformity paperwork and we pre-check the certification chain before production. The freight split also keeps the consignment size sensible — a single pallet of apparel and a single pallet of UAE-sourced electronics is easier to move through DWTC than a single mixed pallet.
For the home-side planning — including the Tbilisi meet-up programme that often runs alongside an AW Dubai trip — see the G GATE Conf Tbilisi 2026 brief. For the wider Caucasus affiliate-show circuit, the i-Con Limassol 2027 and AffPapa Madrid 2027 pages sit on adjacent legs of the same calendar.
For a Tbilisi-based affiliate team, the annual AW Dubai stop is the recurring logistics problem disguised as a recurring marketing problem. The stand itself is the easy part: DWTC provides a clean shell-scheme build, standard booth power, and shared Wi-Fi across the conference floor. What the team controls is the merch layer over that shell, and the merch layer is what survives the Caucasus–Gulf corridor better if it was planned with Tbilisi-to-Dubai freight in mind from day one.
The most common AW Dubai merch pattern we see from Georgian affiliate teams falls into three buckets. The first is the home-courier run: a single account manager flies from Tbilisi International to Dubai with a check-in suitcase plus one large hold item containing the full booth allocation. This pattern works for a small booth and an order below roughly 30 kg; the merch has to be light, durable and well-packed to survive the trip and the DWTC service yard. The second is the split plan that we recommend for most Caucasus teams: apparel, paper, tote bags and pens produced in Tbilisi or Batumi and shipped by air freight into DXB in the week before the show, electronics, drinkware and metal items from a UAE-based regional partner with DWTC delivery experience. The third is the partner-stock pattern: a regional Gulf-based partner holds a pre-built consignment, and the Georgian team arrives with carry-on apparel only, picking up the rest on day zero.
The split plan is the most resilient for the AW Dubai stop. It survives a flight cancellation (because the electronics allocation is sourced inside the UAE), survives a missed freight slot (because the apparel can be re-shipped from Tbilisi via the next available routing through TBS or BUS), and survives a venue delivery rule change at DWTC (because the UAE partner usually knows the new rule faster than the Tbilisi supplier does). The trade-off is cost: a split plan is more expensive per unit than a single consolidated consignment, but the consistency gain is real for the team that has to be on the stand on day one.
For Tbilisi-based teams that combine AW Dubai with a wider partner swing through the Gulf — typically Dubai, Abu Dhabi and a short visit to Sharjah — the merch programme can be planned as a multi-leg consignment. The Dubai stand allocation is the main share; a smaller reserve is held at the team's Dubai hotel for partner dinners; and a Tbilisi-return set is held back for delegation members flying back at different times. The hotel-reserve pattern is what lets the team talk about a Caucasus-deliverable programme without carrying the full booth allocation to every dinner.
The AW Dubai audience overlaps more with the global affiliate-marketing ecosystem than with the broader tech-conference crowd. That means the merch brief is closer to an affiliate-brief than a generic startup brief: the booth team is talking to programme managers, network founders, and traffic-source representatives who already know the brand names, and who decide whether to stop within a few seconds of seeing the stand. The merch that survives that test is one that reads clean, says something about the brand in under a glance, and gives the team something useful to hand over after a substantive conversation.
For most Caucasus teams the apparel layer is the cleanest place to make a brand statement. A polo in two colourways, a lightweight zip layer for the air-conditioned DWTC halls, and a T-shirt for the floor team cover the main team rotations; sizes run across XS to XXL because the AW Dubai audience brings a wider booth-team profile than the typical regional conference. The booth number on the back of the polo is standard, and a subtle Georgian or partner-network mark on the sleeve reinforces the Caucasus-delegation position without dominating the design.
The giveaway layer needs two distinct splits. The general giveaway (two thirds of the consignment) covers lanyards, tote bags, notebooks, pens and 500ml insulated bottles, sized for full multi-day hand-out across the conference floor. The reserved lead-capture allocation (one third) covers power banks, USB-C cables, slim cardholders and the occasional branded AirPods-style case, and stays behind the counter for qualified affiliate-manager conversations. The split matters because it forces the team to make a deliberate choice about who gets the reserved allocation, and that choice is where most of the post-show follow-up happens.
The VIP and speaker layer is the smallest allocation but the highest-touch. A6 leather-look notebooks with a slim metal pen, compact gift boxes with Georgian-origin items (Mtavruli-branded honey, Mukhrani or Tsinandali wines, adjika from the Kakheti region, or premium brandies from the parent Partnership Fund portfolio), and slim cardholders for the speaker pack make up the kit. The kit is delivered by hand to the named contact, and the delivery moment is often the most useful conversation slot of the day for the team.
The year-specific page (for example AW Dubai 2027) carries the dated logistics for a single edition. This page is the standing Caucasus-team brief that is updated each year as the organiser publishes new exhibitor rules and UAE import paperwork for the relevant SKUs.
Two thirds general giveaway (lanyards, totes, pens, small notebooks) sized for full-booth hand-out, and one third reserved for lead-capture gifts handed over after a qualified conversation.
Yes, and for most Caucasus teams we recommend it. The split keeps the apparel production cost reasonable while letting electronics clear UAE customs inside the show freight window.
No. Corp-Merch is an independent supplier that helps participating companies prepare their own merch. It does not organise, sponsor or represent Affiliate World, AW Dubai or any exhibitor association linked to the show.
Corp-Merch is an independent supplier to participating companies. This page is for exhibitors planning their own AW Dubai merch programme; it does not represent the organiser, DWTC, the venue or any sponsor.