I got to attend my very first quilt show in October. The quilts were beautiful and I also found that many of the vendor displays were great as well. Since I live in a rural area, I was looking forward to seeing lots of different quilts AND what types of merchandise might be offered at a quilt show, so I understand the original poster's reaction. Hubbs and I drove over 2 hours to get to the show and I was grateful that he took the day off to spend driving me around because I HATE driving in Atlanta!
There were some great classes offered, but I had decided to get the "flavor" of a quilt show before trying to also do a class, plus I was a little more than intimidated about group sewing. Glad that I made that decision because that allowed me to walk around and look at everything. All in all, it was a great experience, I spent WAY more money than I needed to, got to see some beautiful quilts AND some really cool gadgets. Don't know if it's something that I would want to do every year, though. BUT, that being said, there were some things that, if the money well was bottomless, I sure would have loved to have walked away with! LOL. For those of us who don't have easy access to the many stores catering to the quilter, a quilt show would seem to be the ideal place to be able to experience it all.