The NEC in Birmingham is the biggest exhibition venue in Britain: 21 halls next to Birmingham Airport, just off the M42, with trade shows, consumer shows and conferences running through most of the year. Delivering exhibition games to it is routine work for us - we're at the NEC most years, usually on multi-day runs, and the parts that catch people out are the scheduled loading slots and the paperwork the venue's own contractors ask for. Everything below is what the venue is like to work at and what putting games on a stand there involves.
What the NEC is
The site covers a huge area by the airport, with the 21 halls at its heart and the arena and conference spaces alongside. Shows range from automotive and manufacturing trade fairs to consumer events like the homebuilding and renovating show and the spring fairs, so the crowds vary enormously: a trade day at a motor show behaves nothing like a family Saturday. The postcode for deliveries is B40 1NT. Loading is well organised but scheduled - you're given a slot, you unload, and the vehicle has to come off the site afterwards, so anything heavy goes on a trolley or a truck from the unloading bay. Venue paperwork matters here too: risk assessments and method statements go to you or the venue before the show opens, and the NEC's own contractors will ask for them. Between the NEC, ExCeL in London and Manchester Central we're making several deliveries a week to the big UK exhibition venues, so shell schemes, loading schedules and health and safety forms are all familiar ground.
How exhibition games work on a multi-day show
Most NEC shows run two to four days, which changes the maths compared with a one-day fun day. Everything we bring has to survive continuous play from doors opening to doors closing, so the kit that goes well there is built for it: the Batak Pro has steel construction and LED targets designed to take hammering all day, and the arcade cabinets are commercial machines, not home versions. Power on a shell scheme stand is a standard socket, which covers most of what we take, but it's worth telling us what else is drawing on that supply - kettles, screens, lighting - so we can plan around it. Floor space is the other real limit. The Batak Pro is a bit over two metres wide and a metre deep, and each game needs room for the queue as well, so it's worth checking your stand plan before you fall in love with a 100ft assault course. The halls themselves have the height and the floor loading for almost anything reasonable, so the usual domestic limits - low ceilings, delicate floors, narrow doorways - don't come into it at the NEC.
Which games earn their floor space
The kit that justifies its footprint at a trade show is the sort that keeps a queue moving past your stand. Reaction games like the Batak Pro work because a game lasts around 30 seconds and a leader board gives people something to come back for; racing simulators suit automotive and motorsport shows down to the ground; and arcade games pull in anyone who remembers playing them the first time round. At consumer and public shows, a pick and mix stand does steady business all day and gets families onto the stand. The full range we take to exhibitions is on the exhibition game hire category page, and we've put a dedicated guide together for the NEC Birmingham venue page if you want the practical details in one place.
Branding on your stand
Our in-house branding team wraps most of the range in your artwork, printed, applied and taken off again after the show. We've supplied branded games for the Big Bang Fair, the schools' science and engineering fair, including kit finished in Specsavers livery, and we do repeat work for exhibition builders who want front panels, side panels and headboards produced in their clients' artwork. On a stand where every square metre has cost you money, it makes sense that the game on it is wrapped in your own branding.
Putting a kit list together for an NEC show is easiest through the online quote - add the games you want and we'll price the delivery, the days and the staffing, or call the office on 0114 345 0135 and we'll talk it through. We cover Sheffield, Rotherham, Doncaster, Barnsley, Worksop and Chesterfield locally, and the whole of the UK for exhibition work, so whether the NEC is a five-minute trip down the road for your office or a one-off show you've booked a stand at, the process is the same.
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