It's actually a goo (glue) that it leaves, not peices of the tape like you might notice with duct tape or masking tape. Mayhem is right, depending on the climate the gaff tape can do some funky things. When heated up enough the adhesive glue sort of melts off and will leave a residue. It's not too hard to clear it off flat surfaces, but cables however are a bit trickier.
This past winter I was involved in a competitive theater production which toured to several different venues, so of course you had to spike and
strike the equipment in 25 minutes max. Since it was a new venue each time cables needed to be taped down to prevent tripping and breaks. At strike, everything must be cleared out and unloaded immediately. So of course there really isn't time to properly wrap cables at all or completely clear off any tape or residue from the cables. To give you an idea how long this equipment/cables sit in truck...We normally load this equipment into the truck a day or two before the performance. Performances are typically on a Saturday, so the unload isn't til Monday morning. This truck will experience all kinds of temperatures everything from baking in the sun to the Michigan winters. At the unload we'll wrap cables and organize our gear for the next show. The cables come back quite tangled and residue from tape gaff tap comes back, so we'll try our best to whipe them down. We've never tried any anti-goo substances, I'd like to try it.