One of the busiest exhibition centers in the country, NEC was originally meant to be built in Leicester, but the county council felt that shows of this nature would never move away from London. As a result, Birmingham became home to the seventh largest exhibition centre in Europe!
The NEC hosts an astounding 180 exhibitions a year. The shows lined up for April’s represent a diverse range, including trade exhibitions like MACH 2008, Electrex 2008, IPFEX 2008, amongst many others. Towards the last week of April, there is also the National Engineering and Construction Recruitment Exhibition, which is open to the public.
The NEC consists of 21 exhibition halls of varying sizes as well as the large NEC Arena - a hall with the capacity to seat 12,300 people. There are other conference halls and arenas owned by the NEC Group in Birmingham such as the National Indoor Arena (NIA), International Convention Center (ICC) and Symphony Hall, all of which are located in the heart of the city.
The NEC has a total area of almost 200,000 square meters and the exhibition site is surrounded by ample car parking space. Since it can be quite a distance from the exhibition center, there are shuttle buses that ply to and fro, for the convenience of the visitors. This spacious exhibition center was inaugurated by the Queen in 1976, and subsequently, 12 years later, the Queen again opened three more halls, considerably adding to the space.
The NEC can be easily reached by road, rail or air; the road access is unparalleled with major motorways running on almost all the sides. Birmingham airport also makes it very convenient, connecting the city to the rest of the world, as well as being a mere stone throw’s away from the exhibition center. There is always train travel of course; the Birmingham train station has a bridge link to the NEC, making getting the (more…)
