If it's your event and people are coming for you then stickers are good, cause they like you! But if it's not your event, stickers can be wasteful. Also I don't see the point of magnets.
Perfect sized vacuum insulated mug ( about 350 liquid is brim full ). Wide enough to hand clean including the bottom. I use my one from Mailchimp daily and would love several more.
I am personally thrilled with good -sized tote bags. I other use them for groceries or kid stuff, or sometimes a day to day bag wears out and I’ll grab a tote instead.
YETI mugs
Corksicle bottle
good coffee beans/chocolate
well made socks
Swiss Army knives
we have kept only a fraction out of the china mugs we've got as swag; two from GitHub that are really nice because larger than usual and a similar Adobe one
I'm a big coffee guy - but most mugs are too small for my habit - so when PCBWay sent me a mug - I felt like I would never use it. Except it's the perfect size to hold my pens and pencils and misc stuff on my desk - so I use it every day!
Over the years, I have received a few really good water bottles, a blanket, a scarf, some good backpacks (although now I have too many), and some tshirts and hoodies that actually have a really cute design. I got a powerbrick once and that was great. I also like nice stickers. Unisex shirts I hate
I've gotten some nice pairs of socks too, and the ugly Christmas sweaters which I like
I guess it depends how many people you're providing swag for (in terms of how much you can spend to acquire it to give to people)
The @hackaday-feed.bsky.social Superconference mugs are top tier, I use them often. The badge-as-devboard concept almost never works, as those two use cases pull the design in very different directions, but straight up interesting breakouts and dev boards are great HW swag, and get used.
I prefer nothing or something edible. Coffee, chocolate…nothing that I will eventually have to throw in a landfill or bring to goodwill where it will sit until they throw it in a landfill.
Tissues
Sunscreen
Twice I have received backpacks, I used both, one lasted ten years, the other fell apart after less than a year dropping expensive electronics on the ground. I shall not name the guilty party
Comments
I got a mug in Munich but I loved it not because it was a mug, it was a mini stein! Both useful and part of the heritage of the location.
However not everyone has an insulated-bottle-shaped hole in their day-to-day, and a second one would be useless
Corksicle bottle
good coffee beans/chocolate
well made socks
Swiss Army knives
we have kept only a fraction out of the china mugs we've got as swag; two from GitHub that are really nice because larger than usual and a similar Adobe one
I guess it depends how many people you're providing swag for (in terms of how much you can spend to acquire it to give to people)
I do like a good tote bag though!
Sunscreen
Twice I have received backpacks, I used both, one lasted ten years, the other fell apart after less than a year dropping expensive electronics on the ground. I shall not name the guilty party