Meeting authors

I recently went to Milton Keynes to see Brandon Sanderson (Mistborn/Stormlight Archive/Wheel of Time) do a Q+A and a signing.

He was a thoroughly nice man, had a lot of time for each of us. My reason for going was that, whilst he is my favourite author, I wanted an insight into how professional writers work etc.

My question to you all is this;

If yu have gone to one of these signings what was your reason for going? Was it pure fandom or from a curiousity like mine? Can you pass on any nuggets of wisdom?

If anyone is interested I asked Brandon (we are on first name terms, at least he wrote 'To Alex' in my book) about building magic systems.