My 2 cents worth.
I'd been hoping for a while for a chance to meet "in the flesh" AP members. The expo provided that opportunity and for $5 I got to play some machines, meet up with AP members, have an entertaining night at the dinner ($25 was not bad value) and the only effort I had to put in was to turn up. Not a bad deal. There was a lot of work that went into that expo and , yeah, it wasn't perfect, but jeez it was good.
Tony's idea of a committee and a year's lead time to plan a bigger and better event has my 100% support.