Having gone the first time this fall, here is my 5c worth:
1)Try and stay multiple days, it is much too big for one day. In my case I live close enough (like 3 hours), that I could go there thursday, spend the day there, spend the night and go the next day and be able to go home.
2)Book the hotel early, it was hard this fall when attendance was down because of covid and whatnot, so book it early. There are a number of good hotels there, if you look at the York forum on here, you will see what other people wrote. I stayed at the Wyndham suites, which had the added advantage I could walk to the Quaker Steak and Lube restaurant where people go Thursday night (literally next door). Almost any of the hotels are easily accessible to the York fairgrounds.
3)The fairgrounds are big, they are spread out on a pretty big site, so expect to walk a lot. I didn't notice any kind of shuttle things (some places use like golf carts and the like). I enjoyed it, got a lot of good exercise
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4)Agree with others, get your credentials in the mail well in advance, in case they are slowed down or have a lot of people ordering. Having them day one means you walk right in, the on site registration in the silver hall can be to say the least chaotic, especially early on day 1.
5)Agree about cash, they have ATM machines there but better off having enough for whatever you might want. In the dealer hall a lot of the dealers have card access, but in the member halls def not common, though again dealers there who were tca members were taking cards in some cases..but better to be prepared. However, the ATM machines may or may not have cash, so you may be better off bringing it with you (and yes, one of my wishes would be a way where you could universally use cards there, I suspect it would increase sales a lot).
6)As with any train show, if you are looking for something that isn't particularly unique or hard to find, be careful with prices, like other shows you can find everything from price gouging to 'what a bargain'. Obviously if it is something you haven't been able to find, and it is a price you are willing to pay, may be wise to buy it (and yes, unless otherwise noted, making offers is generally accepted I found, as long as it was reasonable). The size of the event makes buying more common stuff at a good price easier, but can make looking for more rare stuff harder, by the time you look through the other vendors in that hall and the other ones ,and then come back, it could be gone.
7)Talk to people, I think the most fun I had, besides some of the stuff I bought, was getting to talk to the vendors and other people there was a lot of fun, too, I thoroughly enjoyed the people I got to talking to. And you never know, for some reason I fell in love with a standard gauge engine and took it home, go figure
Again, there is a whole area on this forum dedicated to the York show, it is worthwhile reading it, things like hotels and other things are talked about in the usual depth .
