Ok I have been and conquered!!!
Wear a very comfortable pair of shoes!! Buy the very expensive bag at £10 at the entrance, but it's hessian, large, has very long handles so you can wear it over your shoulder and we got a show guide in it, you can go the whole hog and buy one of those old lady shopping bags on wheels, it's even insulated and a whopping £17. There are loads of people with them so street cred is obviously not an issue. You can get a glass holder with a wine glass in that pops round your neck for £6 and you can get all the wine stalls to give you a sample and there is a place to wash your wine glass too!!! Or just take your own glass There are spirits and beer to sample too.
Food wise -it is very expensive to eat a lunch there, £2 for a bottle of coke, I had a bacon roll -3 rashers but it was £4 and my DH had a sausage roll again £4 but it was a farm counter so they had probably slaughtered the animals themselves and knew their names. There are carvery places too selling hot rolls.
So visit the Brita water stand and get yourself a free 1/2pt cup of the stuff!!! Tassimo coffee also give you a full sized cup of coffee! Take some baby wipes with you as the Gordons gin stall actually stamp your hand with a green G so you can only ever have 1 free sample (unless you wash off your G!!!). There are free samples on most stalls, so cheese, curry, rice, crisps, carte-d'or but the crowds are mad so fight your way to the front and the samples of cheese etc are very small. Be cheeky I say and visit more than once. The mediteranean stalls give out free olives, feta, nuts, sun-dried tomatoes etc for you to sample, we bought pannis from here for £4.50 each.
There is nowhere to sit apart from at tables where you have purchased their very expensive food or the floor (which loads of people did) toilets - loads of queues so go easy on that wine.
Don't rush to get a seat at the kitchen demonstrations as we always got to stand to the side near the front and you are watching a TV screen of the chef cooking from above anyway.
The Supertheatre is mad, very crowded but everyone has an allocated seat (we were row C so 3 rows from Jamie Oliver, Fizzy breaks out in cold sweat) and there is very little room for any bags.
Cloak room is £1 which is situated outside and you can put your bag into a different cloakroom inside if it is getting too heavy.
So enjoy yourselves. We were exhausted and would have gone to bed at 7pm