from an idea to an international festival of creativity

Georgia’s leading creative industry festival – Ad Black Sea International Festival of Creativity – is turning 10.

Running a creative festival of this scale for a decade, in a country navigating its own share of challenges, is no small achievement. Bringing together dozens of speakers and hundreds of guests and participants year after year requires persistence, resilience and a strong belief in why such a platform needs to exist.

Yet every year, Ad Black Sea – together with Georgia’s creative industry – continues to prove that it is possible, and that Georgia truly deserves a place on the global map of creativity.

This is the second year that minds&marketing is joining Ad Black Sea as a media partner. And, just like last year, our partner is TBC, whose support once again gives us the opportunity to go beyond simply reporting what happens at the festival – to reflect on what we see and hear, analyze it more deeply and share those insights with a wider audience.

So, somewhere on the edge between summer and autumn, before we meet again at the festival, we’re looking back at the ten-year story of Ad Black Sea – from the moment the idea emerged to where it stands today.

how it all started

The first Ad Black Sea took place in 2015, but the idea behind the festival had emerged much earlier, driven by an ambition to develop Georgia’s creative industry and bring international knowledge and experience closer to the local market.

Vato Kavtaradze, Co-founder and President of Ad Black Sea:

“The more international festivals we attended with WINDFOR’S, the stronger the feeling became that something similar could exist in our own country – a festival that would make international knowledge and experience more accessible to Georgian professionals, while helping Georgia establish its place on the map of the international creative industry.

The first festival, which we organized in collaboration with our Ukrainian colleagues, required an enormous amount of work – research, logistics, technical planning and financial details. But we wanted it so much, and believed so strongly that it was the right thing to do, that we were ready to overcome any difficulty.

That confidence helped us convince sponsors. And when it came to attracting speakers, Michael Conrad helped us – I had met him while studying at the Berlin School of Creative Leadership, and he became just as excited about the idea as we were.”

why Batumi, and why Ad Black Sea?

Both the festival’s name and its location were inspired by the model of Cannes Lions.

A seaside city where different countries, cultures, economies and cuisines have historically and naturally intersected – and where, since 2015, the creative industry has become part of that exchange too.

The festival itself is built around three main pillars: the competition, an educational program of seminars, workshops and masterclasses, and entertainment.

Vato Kavtaradze, Co-founder and President of Ad Black Sea:

“When we looked at Cannes, we thought about how we could approach the entertainment side of the festival. We started Ad Black Sea believing that this was something Georgia could represent exceptionally well – through its contemporary energy, intensity, quality, talent and taste.

We wanted the festival to become an event of regional significance and to bring together the countries of the Black Sea region within a shared context. That is how the name emerged.

There are several countries in this region that play an important role globally. Romania, for example, is considered one of Eastern Europe’s leading creative forces, as is Turkey, among others. We also wanted to include the post-Soviet space. In the early years, progressively minded Russian agencies participated as well, but the war in Ukraine changed the context, and Russia was completely removed from the festival.”

the challenges

Over the years, the Ad Black Sea team has faced more than a few defining challenges.

In 2016, restrictions affecting one of the festival’s financial sources nearly caused the event to fall through. But the decision was reversed just two weeks before the festival, and the team managed to organize the entire event in only ten days.

Then came the two-year pause during COVID-19, when the whole world came to a standstill. Yet the Ad Black Sea team continued to believe that the interruption was temporary.

In 2022, following the pandemic and amid Russia’s war against Ukraine, the decision to restart the festival was difficult in itself. That same year, Ad Black Sea refused participation from Russia and Belarus, made competition entry free for Ukraine and chose not to apply for state support — giving up three major sources of revenue at once.

Bringing international speakers to Georgia continues to come with challenges: limited flight connections, the country’s geographic proximity to a geopolitical “hot zone” and political instability.

Yet despite all of this, belief in its values, the support of its partners and the festival’s original mission — securing Georgia’s place on the global creative industry map — have repeatedly enabled Ad Black Sea to make the seemingly impossible possible.

Ad Black Sea’s impact on Georgia’s creative industry

As has been said many times throughout its history, Ad Black Sea’s central mission has always been to contribute to the development of Georgia’s creative industry and bring it as close as possible to international standards.

Over the past decade, the industry has undergone significant positive change – and Ad Black Sea has played an important role in that transformation.

Tamar Tsintsadze, Executive Director of Ad Black Sea:

“Today, far more international professionals recognize Georgia as a country with a creative industry. At the very least, this is partly the result of years of bringing international professionals into our jury teams.

One important change has been the narrowing of the gap between marketers and agencies. The festival created a space for marketers to become more actively involved in the creative process, making their role more visible as well.

The culture of partnership has changed too. It has always been important to us that sponsorship should mean more than simply placing a logo somewhere. We wanted to create genuine, meaningful collaboration between brands and the festival. I think this has also contributed to a more thoughtful culture of partnerships across the industry.

The competition has played its own role. Agencies have become more deliberate about selecting categories, preparing cases and, more broadly, looking at their campaigns through the perspective of international competitions from the planning stage. This has strengthened healthy competition. Introducing the Best Client category made the marketer’s role within this ecosystem even more visible.

And finally, one achievement that matters greatly to us is that social issues – including gender equality and sustainability – have become much more clearly represented on the agenda of both the festival and the industry. I don’t think the development of an industry should be measured only by the number of awards it wins. Growing responsibility around these issues is part of that development too.”

10 years of Ad Black Sea in one word

Sopho Kechkhoshvili, Competition Director of Ad Black Sea:

“If I had to describe Ad Black Sea in one word, it would probably be Edge – because these ten years have meant constantly being on the edge: of new ideas, new possibilities, new challenges and, sometimes, testing just how far we could go.

For Ad Black Sea, it was never simply about organizing the festival every year. We constantly had to set a new edge for ourselves, aim for bigger goals and test how far we could take the creative industry of Georgia and the wider region.”

on the edge — Ad Black Sea 2026

In that sense, this year’s festival concept captures both the history of Ad Black Sea and where it finds itself today.

On the Edge – geographically, culturally, professionally and emotionally.

Beyond marking the festival’s 10th edition, Ad Black Sea 2026 will also be particularly significant in terms of its speaker lineup. Industry giants David Droga and Cindy Gallop will visit the festival for the first time, bringing their perspectives and experience to the Ad Black Sea stage.

According to the festival team, the anniversary program will be equally diverse, bringing together the people and subjects shaping the creative industry’s agenda today: Pentagram, Le Pub, McCann, visual artists, artificial intelligence and, of course, creative resistance as part of the reality we navigate every day.

Ad Black Sea, 10 years later

Vato Kavtaradze, Co-founder and President of Ad Black Sea:

“From the very beginning, my wish, my dream and my vision was for the festival to represent Georgia on the international map.

Ad Black Sea has the potential to become an important international forum – a place where countries that are intellectually, culturally and contextually close to us can come together.

But all of this is so deeply intertwined with the country’s political situation that I can only see this development and scale becoming possible if we succeed in the struggle we are currently facing.”

in conclusion

Ad Black Sea’s original ambition remains unchanged: to connect Georgia’s creative industry more closely with the international creative world.

But today, that ambition can no longer be only about bringing international knowledge into Georgia.

The next step is to see more ideas, campaigns and cases travel from Georgia to the global stage.

Experience has already shown that the potential is there. The real challenge now is to turn that potential from a series of individual success stories into an industry standard — with more courage, higher quality and greater ambition.

See you in Batumi!

Editorial powered by TBC.