It's not a great event. We go every year because it's February and there isn't much else to do. They oversell the GA session so it gets so packed that it becomes annoying. If you don't do VIP, you're doing yourself disservice. That one hour at the beginning is the only good part about it. Usually by 1:45 we leave and go somewhere else. It's just way too many people.
Other issues-
1) the food is just concession stand food. The City of Portland is a dining hub. Tons of great restaurants. But that is never incorporated into the event.
2) The overall setup sucks. The beer booths are set up in a way the creates a bottle neck, so it's difficult to move around. If they set up the booths around the rim of the floor and moved the more generic ones out into the concourse areas, it would be less cramped and would allow for more of a walkable experience.
3) Many of the booths are run by volunteers. To be fair, there were more brewery reps present this year than in previous years. But it is terribly annoying when you go to a booth and ask questions about the beer and they don't know anything about it.
4) They even wrecked the sample cups this year. The "commemorative sample glass"had a big black and white advertisement sticker slapped over the PoT logo. The stickers wouldn't peel off, so we had to throw them all out. The cup isn't much of a souvenir to begin with, but the sticker wrecked whatever value it had as a reusable item. All for a cheap money grab.
This event could be decent if someone who actually likes craft beer and brewfests took the reigns of it. It's shoddy at best, because they know people will come anyway, so they phone it in.