my guild has had two well known quilters per year. This year it's Vikki Pignatelli and Kathy Kansier. Vikki's rates are $1300 for a two day class for members and $150 for non=members. No prices on Kathy's classes yet. We make every effort to keep prices down, and since we have so many events thru the year (retreat, guest teachers, etc.) we're thinking of changing to one out of state guest teacher and one in state guest teacher. He have lot of talent in Alaska so I think we wouldn't be losing anything but making the change. Not sure about plans for 2012, but we recently did a survey of members to see who we wanted to bring in and what type of techniques we wanted to learn.
We have a spot in the budget for speakers, but the cost is supplemented by those who attend.