I love the shows, especially the larger ones. I definately go for and get inspiried. I collect the photo's and keep them sorted by the one (or two) interesting features of the quilt that I want to glean something from (ie "Quilted Feathers", "Linear Quilting", "Applique" etc) and I'll sort through them when working on other projects. I confess I do the same thing with photo's I see here on QB and elsewhere on the web.
I rarely spend much at the smaller shows (not that many vendors), but went wild in Paducah - of course most of the money I spent was spent at Hancock's of Paducah and mostly on the "batik bench". OH MY OH MY!!!
That said, Hubby offered to take me to AQS show in Lancaster PA this year. Actually ... he wants to visit folks in Lancaster County and I said "why not do it when the quilt show is happening?". In the end, I changed my mind. The show is in mid March and I'd really rather visit our friends in the summer when we can enjoy the nice weather on his farm (they're Amish).