Ed Parsons wrote at 2006-09-14 22:53:

Mike, no sorry not my area..

Best tat I have seen at a GIS show by a long way was a plastic sunflower on a metre high stalk in a little plastic plot given away my leica at interGEO (you would have to have seen them), I'm not sure how people got them home on planes !!

Worst - no doubt ER mapper boxer shorts !!

Andy Wells wrote at 2006-09-15 07:53:

It is a close run thing between best and worst tat in the past. I would agree with Ed that the ERM Boxer shorts were the worst BUT would have easily won the competition this year, especially when they were given out the same year as they sponsored the toilets!

There has been a number of other sad losses over the 10 years I have been on stands at the show. The number of companies with horrific music which played in a loop (ok for visitors who only had to stand it for an hour or so but as an exhibitor!!!!!. Also missing are the on stand mini-presentations and the innovative way visitors were encouranged to attend (who can forget the the Big Ben on the ERMapper stand that bonged every hour on the hour)

Still just maybe these much loved things will return

Alistair Maclenan wrote at 2006-09-15 10:02:

If I had known how much it upset the other vendors I think we would have run those boxers every year :-) Nice to see how memorable they were though..

Neil Brooker (Autodesk Ideal Home Division) wrote at 2006-09-15 11:09:

Mike, many thanks for this prestigious accolade. We have 4 boxes of the coasters left so are thinking of 'Open Sourcing' them. Our marketing dept are trying to figure out how to upload them to the OsGeo website! I'm going to leave them for a few days.

Greg Byrom wrote at 2006-09-15 14:50:

Nobody so far has mentioned the hassle you had to go through to get the most useless piece of tat at the entire show this year - the WiFi Hotspot Locator, and thanks to all those vendors on the DNF trail who kindly supplied me with the stickers so I could get this piece of tat. So far the best use I can think of for it is to remove the batteries to use in something else - ANYTHING else!

Martin Daly wrote at 2006-09-15 17:07:

Ed, I will see your plastic sunflower and raise you a chocolate CD (in a CD case and everything) and wooden coaster from GML Dev Days 2003, courtesy of Schemasoft. Autodesk were giving out pens in those days.

Schemasoft appear to have disappeared, as it were; perhaps after spending too much on tat...

Sara wrote at 2006-09-15 19:10:

A friend once brought me back a sponge crayfish on a metre high metal stick - all the way from San Diego. Can't remember which company was giving it away - but honestly why would you bring back a sponge on a stick from San Diego???

Personally, I always enjoy the squeezy stress-ball globes.

Sim wrote at 2006-09-17 23:51:

Who can forget the Lizardtech plastic lizards/ choke hazard?

Ken Field wrote at 2006-09-18 09:41:

I still have my Lizardtech family of lizards. I'm also quite fond of my vibrating stress globe (pull the string and let it go!) but, alas, there is no logo on it so I can't be sure of the company...acquired in San Diego though. In fact, the ESRI show has been an excellent source of swag and remains somewhere of note in the tat world. Maybe the Americans still take it seriously?

The OS OHP slides of MasterMap layers were a bit 'old school' at this year's AGI. Still, Kingston have only ever had pens before (OK - before someone else says it, no, we don't give away degrees!).

I'll go and hunt around at home. Plenty of tat stuffed away somewhere. Got a rubiks cube somewhere...