Photokina is about many things: it's a time and place to launch new products, an opportunity for manufacturers, retailers and of course journalists to get together, it's exciting, it's glamorous and it's very hard work. We spent three days there and came back exhausted. The exhibitors will spend all week there and we thought that it was about time we rewarded the people whose hard work made all this possible.
Enter the Cammies - awards for best refreshments, best party, person in most need of sleep, loudest stand and most bizarre thing. Come on, it's Friday - you didn't really expect us to give awards for “best new product” or anything sensible, did you?
Best Refreshment - 
We had meetings. Lots of meetings. We were talking to industry leaders about their views of the future, manufacturers about their new products and software companies about their new applications. All that talking was thirsty work - fortunately our hosts were very generous.
Special mention
For sheer inventiveness the award would have to go to Casio. Where other people provided great coffee, juice and water, Casio went one step further and put a lot of thought into their drinks. There was the “Special Extended Battery”, the “Ultra Zoom Burst” and a bunch of other non alcoholic cocktails. It was never really clear what was in them but mixed fruit drinks with silly names went a long way to keeping us amused. They tasted great too!
The winner
After a long 3 days of walking up an down halls (the press centre is something like half a mile from the southern tip of the show), talking to lots of people, trying lots of kit and watching fashion shows we sat down with Lexar to discuss their latest products. The meeting got off to a great start when they uttered those immortal words: “Fancy a beer?” The winner - no contest. Not only was it very nice beer it also came at exactly the right time on just the right day.
Since the show we have learned that it's possible that some people might see serving alcohol to journalists as a breach of show rules. We'd better stress that it was completely and utterly non alcoholic beer. Honest.
Best Party - 
Three days - three parties. Actually there were a lot more parties than that but we only had time for three. Which, by a curious coincidence, was exactly the number we were invited to.
Special mention
Canon held their cocktail party in a very cool club just near a very derelict warehouse. It looked unpromising as we approached but once inside everything was light and laughter. Our hosts were very generous and we got to watch the sun go down behind the cathedral with a cold beer in hand, listening to live saxophone. The food was great too.
An office block in the centre of the business area may seem to be an odd place to hold a press party but Kodak pulled off a masterstroke by holding their party on the 30th floor. High speed lifts whisked us up to the balcony where we could look over the whole of Cologne while being wined and dined.
The winner
This is going to seem strange because we had to leave to catch a plane before everything really got going but we could just tell that Fujifilm's party in a brauhaus near the cathedral was a great evening. It wasn't the biggest party or the most lavish but beautiful surroundings, great hosts and lots of interesting people there made this a worthy winner for us. As with all the events in Cologne our hosts served Kolsch in long thin 0.2l glasses - great service meant that it was hard to empty one before another magically took its place. It was only when I checked the spelling in Wikipedia that I learned that tradition states you must leave your glass half full to avoid being served another. Oh well...
We were genuinely sorry that we had to go just as the food was being served - especially as we ended up sitting in an airport for 4 hours where the only food was from a sandwich shop that had run out of bread.
Person in most need of sleep - 
Early planes, late nights and miles of walking all take their toll. After a couple of days you can literally tell what day people arrived on by just how tired they look. Despite this everyone was very friendly and went out of their way to help but “person in most need of sleep” is a very hotly contested title.
Special mention
Tara O'Brien only found she was going to Photokina to represent Fujifilm on the Monday afternoon. She was covering for a colleague. She got the 6ish flight out of Gatwick (check in opens at a very handy 4:20am), taxi from the airport and straight into a meeting with, err, me. Bright, cheerful and well briefed but she couldn't hide what a killer that flight can be - we'd been on the same one the day before.
The winner
I actually felt sorry for Louise Kingham representing Samsung because I called at the last minute to make our morning meeting even earlier. At the time I didn't know that she'd worked the previous day in the office and opted for a late flight out. Things started to go wrong when the flight was severely delayed and she didn't get to her hotel until very late. Not only was she charming and knowledgeable at our meeting she even provided breakfast.
Loudest stand - 
Photokina is huge - truly amazingly big. Walk around the outside of the building and you'll probably cover a couple of miles. There are plenty of different areas for all the different types of company but everybody agreed that Hall 4.1 was not the place to catch up on sleep. It was loud. Actually it was very loud.
Special mention
Of course you expect Apple to be loud. For one thing they feel they have a lot to shout about. For another, there's always a demonstration of something (OK, it's always Aperture) happening on a huge screen with a presenter talking excitedly into their microphone. Apple seems to employ only the most enthusiastic presenters. They also have about 8 thousand Macs each running Aperture and each with its own demonstrator. Aficionados of Apple product demos will be genuinely shocked that they only got a special mention.
The winner
Just over the way from Apple was a small company called iView Multimedia. They are such a comparatively small outfit that they were sharing a stand with the guys from Phase One. Of course, iView was recently bought by Microsoft. From the size of the stand and the position near Apple I can only assume the floor plan was done before the acquisition.
Whatever the reason, Microsoft rose to the challenge manfully and invested a large proportion of their show budget in amplifiers. When I visited the stand on Tuesday iView were just managing to shout down Apple but there were rumours that both firms were contacting local firms to ship in more speakers and amplifiers. This arms race won't be over until the very end of the very last day.
Most bizarre thing - 
There are people at Photokina from all over the world. I found a hall full of Chinese and Far East exhibitors. As such there are bound to be things that some people just don't get. Most of these were cultural things but some of them were just, well, bizarre.
Special mention
Epson ran a great press conference showcasing some of their latest technology and outlining their plans for the future. At the end everyone got a carrier bag. In the bag was a screwdriver. I actually lay awake that night wondering why Epson would think this was a good idea - it just seemed tailor made for people making jokes about needing to fix their printers.
In the morning it came to me - they also handed out beautiful books of double sided inkjet paper. The books are held together with brass screws - unscrew them, print them and screw them back together. You now have a lovely photo book. And a spare screwdriver.
The winner
SanDisk make memory cards. They also do a couple of other related things such as card readers, thumb drives and are currently running a promotion with Phase One. None of this goes any way to explain why they had a mime artist outside their stand. We dropped in and asked them. They had no idea. The next day we went back and the mime had been replaced by a hip hop performer. Again, no explanation was forthcoming. Bizarre. It even beats Sony having Evel Knievel on their stand.
And finally
Thank you. To all the people who went out of their way and took time to talk to us and help us, for all the hospitality and friendship and for making Photokina fun. The Cammies are a light hearted look at the show but we really appreciate all the hard work and effort put in. You have about 6 months until PMA to think up new names for fruit cocktails and get hold of some “alcohol free” beer.
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