I've been to a couple of different places for retreats. My small guild in Kansas has one every year. It's $100 if you come on thursday or $80 if you get there on friday. The other one I've been to is for a yahoo group and it has been held at a hunting lodge during the off season and it was $120 for friday thru sunday. None of them had big name teachers though. We just had local quilt store owners give classes for whatever was the latest thing and you could participate or not.