Dubai’s Gitex: a gruelling week ahead

I can’t remember how many times I have attended Gitex. The event is one of the most important in the region’s tech calendar, but it is the week that most journalists dread the most.

The 34th Gitex will take place at the Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC) from October 12-16. This year the organisers are expecting more than 100,000 visitors from the IT sector and 3,700 exhibitors from more than 60 countries. There are exhibitions and conferences and other conferences that run parallel to the main event.

It is the biggest ever Gitex, so big that DWTC is running out of space.

It is essential to point out that the DWTC is huge, you can clock up a marathon trying to get to various meetings and interviews throughout the week. There’s so much noise, so many people, so little time. It is exhausting and tiring and goes by slowly.

While many executives welcome Gitex as an opportunity to get out of the office, show their wares, see some pretty models wandering around and enjoy free snacks, for journalists the affair is far more tedious.

Though perhaps it is the week that leads up to the event that is the worst. My phone continues to ring non-stop. PR, after PR, after PR sending emails, following up with phone calls, resending emails, following up with more phone calls to let you know that their 3,000-plus clients will be at Gitex and interested in interviewing with your news outlet.

Stop it. I am covering Gitex alone this year, I am still recovering from an Achilles tendon that snapped in half. I walk at the pace of a four-year-old toddler and I have no interest in writing up a press release for your client.

What's that? Free lunch at your stand you say? OK, I may stop by for a bit, but not really, it will take forever to find your stand and you should know by now, no one has the time to eat lunch at Gitex.