I went earlier this year and I thought it was a good experience. The key is to arrive on time and sit there and do the silent reading that he assigns before the lecture starts.

I sat in the front and he approached me. He was friendly, asked me what I did, made some suggestions on books and articles to explore. He also signed my book, which was cool.

I'd take the class again for sure.

I think it's important to just go in with an open mind and not treat everything he says as gospel. I think he presents some ideas that very much cut against the conventional wisdom in Silicon Valley and that was nice to hear.

So yeah, I think it'd be worth your time to go. Plus, just because someone else didn't like it doesn't mean you won't get a lot out of it. Unless you go and see for yourself, you can't really know.

I went to his one day event maybe 6 years ago, with a group from grad school.

Had the same experience, while it was cool to get all of his books, the actual presentation really wasn't that great.

There was also like 200-250 people in the room at least. Way too big for "intimate" learning.

I attended the "See, Think, Design, Produce" one-day session that Tufte put on with guest speakers Jonathan Corum, Bret Victor, and Mike Bostock (back in 2014). It was a great set of lectures, but TBH, felt that Tufte's talk was the least engaging/practical/applicable.

I'm definitely a bigger fan of Tufte's books than his in-person lectures.

I would agree with that assessment. When I went, I attended in a huge room with hundreds of other people. It was not a seminar in the sense of being able to interact with the teacher, but a lecture. And the lecture did not present a sequenced set of actionable principles, but bits and pieces consisting of the history of design, critiques of existing designs, an occasional bit of advice, and a lot about Tufte. Overall, I did not feel that I'd received enough value to offset the entry fee and the time.

Edit: clarity

Fwiw the books are included if you buy a ticket, and the books are the medium of much of his work so it would make sense for him to extensively reference them

It would be a shame if true. I suppose if I gave the same talk for 20+ years my enthusiasm might wane.