Good experiential marketing in Dubai gives people something to do, something to win and something to share, all in the time it takes to walk past a booth. Visa's FIFA World Cup 26 fan zone did exactly that: a cage pitch, a signed shirt to play for, and a moment with the real Winners' Trophy, weeks before the first match on 11 June.
The project was handled by Playground, the branding arm of iklipse, a creative and AI production agency working across the GCC, Egypt and beyond. This is how it came together.
The brief was to let fans feel the tournament before a ball is kicked.
Visa is a FIFA Worldwide Partner and has been FIFA's official payment technology partner since 2007. For the 2026 tournament, hosted across the United States, Canada and Mexico, it built its campaign around two faces: Lamine Yamal and Pep Guardiola. The brief for Dubai was short. Bring the World Cup to fans here early, and make them feel part of it.
That is a harder brief than it sounds. The tournament is on the other side of the world. Most Gulf fans will watch it on a screen late at night. The job was to give them a physical memory of the World Cup in their own city.
A booth works when every zone gives people a reason to stay.
Playground led the creative and art direction, experiential design and event branding. The space was planned as a short journey with a payoff at each step.
The cage pitch turned visitors into players.
At the centre sits a pitch inside a football cage. Fans step in, take their shot, and score to win a shirt signed by one of the two campaign icons. A small skill challenge with a big prize is the oldest trick in event design, and it still works, because the queue becomes the show.
The merch wall made the prize feel real.
Winners collect their prize from a merch wall, so the reward happens on the spot, in front of everyone waiting their turn.
The play zone kept people around.
A play zone with match screens and gaming stations gives friends and families somewhere to hang out, which matters in a city where an outing is often a whole evening.
The trophy moment was the photo everyone came for.
Then there is the FIFA World Cup 26 Winners' Trophy itself. People queued to see it. For many of them it will be the closest they ever get to football's biggest prize, and that is the picture that ends up on their phones and in their stories.
One look tied the booth, the campaign and the feed together.
A torn-paper collage look in Visa blue and gold runs through everything: the booth, the Lamine and Pep key visual, the spend-to-win ticket campaign and the social rollout. That consistency is easy to underrate. When the visual in someone's feed matches the wall they stood in front of, the experience keeps working after they have gone home.
The spend-to-win ticket campaign also links the fun to the business. Visa is a payments brand, and a promotion where using your card can win you a ticket to the tournament connects the fan zone back to what the brand actually does.
Here is what Dubai teaches about experiential marketing.
Nabil Khaled, founder of iklipse, often makes the point that in the Gulf a brand activation competes with some of the best-produced entertainment in the world. Malls, festivals and events here set a high bar. A few lessons from this project:
- Give people a verb. Score, win, collect, pose. A booth people only look at is a billboard with a rental fee.
- Put the hero object at the end. The trophy works as a finale. Everything before it builds anticipation.
- Design for the phone. Every zone in the Visa space had a clear photo angle, and the collage look reads well on a small screen.
- Connect the fun to the brand's real role. Spend to win made the activation about payments without a sales pitch.
The details that make a booth feel premium are mostly invisible.
Fans never see the planning, and they should not have to. Queue lines need to be designed so the wait is part of the fun, with the pitch and the trophy visible from the line. Lighting has to flatter phone cameras at night as much as during the day, which is why the booth was planned to glow after dark. Prize handover needs to be fast, so winners do not stand around while the next person is waiting. Staff need simple scripts so the rules of the game are clear in Arabic and English. None of this makes the case study photos, and all of it decides whether people leave smiling or frustrated.
If you are planning an activation in the UAE or the wider GCC, our brand experiences team covers the whole chain, from concept and spatial design to branding and the social rollout. See the full Visa x FIFA World Cup 26 case study for more images.
Frequently asked questions
Who designed the Visa World Cup fan zone in Dubai?
Playground, the branding arm of iklipse, led the creative and art direction, experiential design and event branding.
What could fans do in the Visa fan zone?
Score on a cage pitch to win a shirt signed by Lamine Yamal or Pep Guardiola, collect prizes from a merch wall, play in a zone with match screens, and see the FIFA World Cup 26 Winners' Trophy.
When does the 2026 World Cup start?
The tournament opens on 11 June 2026 in Mexico City and runs across the United States, Canada and Mexico.
Sources: Visa newsroom, FIFA, iklipse case study.
