One thing I feel obligated to mention as a member of the convention committee:
Many folks(I'm guilty of this myself) tend to box in and think Regional=Mart and that basically the two are interchangeable.
I think it's safe to say that the mart room is the single biggest draw for most folks, and if weren't present I don't know if it would even be financially viable for a chapter to host a regional. These days too, the chapters aren't exactly making a pile of money on hosting the marts-depending on the weather at Lexington(January can scare a lot of folks) we usually roughly break even(single biggest cost is venue rental, and we've been a long enough customer at a slow time of year that we can work a good deal on that, and a few other miscellaneous expenses like food for the hospitality room and the really expensive mart ad that a lot of folks still count on while money in comes from admission+table sales).
Still, though, Regionals are SUPPOSED to include an education component. At Lexington, often our co-hosts, Chapter 35 out of Louisville, will put together a phenomenal display, although there have been a few others. We do our best to have both a watch in a clock talk. Since I've been involved, I've tried to recruit some good watch talks-among others we've had John Cote give his "Collecting without Going Broke" talk, Clint has given a talk on Civil War Watches, and a few others I'm forgetting. I've done a few presentations, although I will freely admit to most of mine being rough since it's always been my first go-round for a particular one. The past two years John Cote and I have done an organized roundtable show-and-tell session where many of the participants bring a watch related to a different topic(last year it was a generic "favorite watch" one) and we spend time looking at them and talking about them. I think everyone comes away learning something, and often times even the owner of the watch will!
It's important to emphasize, though, that while historically admission to the mart room required has required one to be an NAWCC member(spouses and children under 18 also permitted, and also the not widely known escorted visitor policy where an interested non-member could be walked around the room but not buy/sell), educational programs are always both free and open to the public.
I know folks who attend a lot of regionals and have never been to an educational program. To me, that's a shame, as they're an important component of the event and of course always an opportunity to both look and learn.
One other thing worth pointing out is that typically a member of the board of directors attends every regional meeting. We always give them a table up at the front of the room, and they're open for you to talk to them and hear what's on your mind. There is also generally a meeting where they report on the state of the association and open the floor more formally for questions.