I live in Houston, so I have the option of attending the quilt show annually here, plus smaller shows that I find out about here and there. I don't go every year to Houston - in fact, I didn't go for two or three years because of the sameness of them. The same quilts, the same vendors, the same wares.
I go through the vendor booths at the quilt show not to buy fabric - I can buy that any time. I look for the new innovations that I haven't seen before (a few years ago, it was the Tru-Cut ruler/rotary cutter), or to try out the various machines. But there was a period there when I wasn't really seeing anything new, and I wasn't interested in the machines. Also, I kept seeing several of the same quilts at the show, so I stopped going for a while.
My biggest complaint the last couple of times is the number of booths that have nothing at all to do with quilting or sewing. I know there are "other vendors" that are welcome at these things, but it seemed like a quarter of the booths were full of tacky jewelry and such.