I've been to two shows - Sharpie's Montreal Cybernet Expo and Internext Summer (Florida).
In my experience Sharpie's show blew Internext away on so many different levels.
I heard that the AWE shows were great from the webmasters that attended and was looking forward to going to one of those one day, but then they closed up shop.
Internext is the big dog and people complain like crazy. The complaints are being ignored and it looks like they've been ignored for years. But yet folks keep going - and they will keep going and it will continue to be the biggest show with the most people attending even if AVN were to double the price. Sad but true. For a webmaster it's the easiest place to find all of your sponsors in one spot and generally a good majority of all the folks you've ever wanted to meet or do business with will be there as well.
From a sponsor's point of view, Internext overcharges, nickles and dimes you to death with its extra fees for things that should be included, and then (at least with Florida) gives you as little as possible and makes it difficult to talk to prospects. Hell, one person stands in front of your booth and one person stands in front of the booth across from you, and you've got a traffic jam. People come to the end of the aisle and see the clog, and just keep walking.
It was supposed to put everyone on an even playing field - all sponsors got the same sized booth. Lo and behold, you get to the show and some sponsors have 3, 4, even 5 booth spaces - so much for taking them at their word.
If you want to do anything for the webmasters at the show you *must* rent a booth - even if you have no intention of keeping it staffed and it sits there with a "gone fishing" sign the entire time.
Bah. I could go on forever. Bring on the shows where the focus is on networking and building your business, rather than being about who can have the flashiest booth.