That $30 entry fee also gets you 2 tickets to the exhibitors tasting which is a Saturday afternoon of drinking with hundreds of both amateur and professional brewers. All entries are presented for tasting including the draft category for which breweries have to provide two kegs.
Picture drinking every style of beer imaginable with twelve beers on tap and hundreds of bottled beers, both homebrew and commercial. They change beers on the taps hourly and it's just brew talk with brewers which I can tell you from experience is my idea of a good session.
Trust me, if you can make it along to the tasting it's definitely worth the thirty bucks.