The National Exhibition Centre NEC is an exhibition centre in Solihull,
near Birmingham, England. It is near junction 6 of the M42 motorway,
and is adjacent to Birmingham International Airport and Birmingham
International railway station.
It has 21 interconnected halls, set in grounds of 628 acres 2.54 km2.
It is the seventh largest exhibition centre in Europe.
Since the 1980s,
it has hosted performances by many international musicians and
music groups, several of which have played at the NEC Arena on
more than one occasion.
Canadian rock band Rush filmed their VHS and DVD release
entitled A Show of Hands at the NEC Arena in 1988.
Some of this recording featured in the the audio album of the
same name.
Iron Maiden recorded Maiden England at the NEC,
during their Seventh Tour Of A Seventh Tour in 1988.
The video for AC/DC song, That's the Way I Wanna
Rock n Roll was also recorded there, during their Blow up
your video tour in 1988.
The NEC was originally going to be
built adjacent to the M1 junction 21 near Leicester but it was
turned down by Leicestershire County Council with claims that
The big shows won't move away from London.
In November 1971, the Secretary of State for the Environment
granted outline planning approval for the National Exhibition
Centre in Birmingham. The NEC, originally comprising
89,000 m2 of exhibition space, was opened by the Queen in
February 1976.
The building was designed by Edward Mills.
In 1989, the Queen
opened three further halls, increasing the space to 125,000 m2.
Four more halls were added in 1993, the total exhibition space
increasing to 158,000 m2. Another four new halls, opened in
September 1998 by Neil Kinnock, European Commissioner
for Transport, took the total space to
190,000 m2 2,045,142 square feet.
These buildings were designed by Seymour Harris.
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