The UK’s largest event venue, beside Birmingham Airport and Birmingham International station, with 18 halls and 32 conference suites.
What the venue publishes
The NEC lists 18 event halls, 32 purpose-built conference suites and 186,000 sq m of covered space on a 440-acre campus. It says it hosts more than 500 events a year, including more than 100 trade and consumer exhibitions, and has over 50 years’ experience. It says new exhibitions grow by an average of 37% in their second year at the venue.
For corporate events it groups spaces into meeting rooms for up to 50 delegates, conference suites for up to 702 and large-scale event space for up to 10,000. Day delegate rate packages are available. The campus has around 16,500 parking spaces, seven on-site hotels and the bp pulse LIVE arena. The NEC, the ICC and Vox are marketed together under the Nation’s Experience Capital name.
The venue says it is 10 minutes from Birmingham city centre, has six trains an hour to London and puts 75% of the UK within three hours’ travel. These are its own figures.
Questions for your brief
- Which hall or conference suite fits your format, and how far is it from the entrance and station your audience will use?
- Which other events are on the campus on your dates, and how do they affect parking, hotels and arrivals?
- Which catering, AV and production services are in-house, and which can you bring in?
- Is conference-client parking included for your delegates, and how is it allocated?
Related coverage
Sources: The NEC: host an exhibition, The NEC: corporate events