The National Experience Centre (NEC) Group’s venues host more than 400 events every year. Trade shows. International conferences. Arena tours. Consumer exhibitions. Awards ceremonies. Brand activations. Together they bring millions of visitors through Birmingham and demand a standard of production most operations couldn’t sustain across a single quarter, let alone a full calendar.
For the past twelve months, that calendar has been ours to support. Hollywood Monster is proud to be the official NEC Group Print Partner, working across the four venues that anchor the UK’s biggest live events business: the National Exhibition Centre, the International Convention Centre, Utilita Arena Birmingham, and Resorts World Arena.
This is a milestone worth marking, but it isn’t the headline. The headline is what 400+ events looks like in practice, and what it takes to deliver that volume of large-format print, hard signage, and digital display work without ever dropping the standard.
Supporting 400+ Events a Year Across Four Venues
Most production environments handle peaks. Major conferences, big retail rollouts, occasional event clusters. The National Experience Centre (NEC Group operates differently. Their calendar is the peak. Year-round, week after week, the venues turn over from one major event to the next, often with only hours between bump-out and the start of the next install.
Across that calendar, the work ranges wider than people realise. In the exhibition halls, it’s trade shows and consumer expos that fill hundreds of thousands of square metres of hall space with branded environments built to be seen and remembered.
At the ICC, it’s international conferences, government summits, awards dinners, and association events: different audiences, different production briefs, but the same expectation that the venue looks the part the moment delegates arrive.
Across Utilita Arena Birmingham and Resorts World Arena, it’s live music, comedy, sport, and family entertainment, with venue branding, sponsor activations, and hospitality fit-outs that have to hit a different kind of standard. Arena work is bigger, brighter, and judged from further away, but the precision still has to hold up close.
That spread is what makes a venue partnership different from working with a single client. Every brief is a different brief. Every install is a different problem to solve.
What the Print Work Actually Looks Like
Across the year, the work has spanned the full breadth of what a major venue estate needs to bring its events to life. There’s the visible identity: vinyl graphics, printed textiles, banners, and pillar wraps that turn neutral architecture into an environment with personality.
There’s the visitor-facing detail: free-standing boards, kiosk headers, and hall entrance fascias that guide people, frame moments, and tell them they’ve arrived somewhere significant. And there’s the structural side, including beMatrix-built environments that form the backbone of exhibitor stands, registration zones, and bespoke branded areas across the estate.
Some of it lives on a wall for an afternoon. Some of it stays in place across multiple events. All of it has to land perfectly first time, because there isn’t a second chance when doors open at nine on a Tuesday morning.
The Production Capability Sitting Behind the NEC Group print partner
Operating at this volume, with these deadlines, isn’t possible without serious in-house capability.
Our 45,000 sq ft facility in Tyseley is a deliberate choice, sat less than ten miles from the NEC. Geography matters more than people give it credit for. When a brief lands at five o’clock and graphics need to be installed before breakfast, the difference between a Birmingham production base and a partner with a longer supply chain is the difference between making the deadline and missing it.
Inside the facility, every stage of production happens under one roof. That includes some of the most advanced large-format print equipment in the UK: the SwissQprint Kudu and the EFI VUTEk M3h hybrid, alongside the Hasler Magna 5-metre conveyor cutter that handles precision finishing at scale. It’s the combination of platforms that lets the team print on the right substrate, at the right size, with the right turnaround, regardless of whether the brief calls for vinyl, fabric, rigid board, or fabricated structure.
Every job runs through the same standards: colour accuracy, edge precision, build quality, install fit. At 400+ events a year, none of that is optional.
Why Venue Print Work is Different
Working as a major venue’s print partner isn’t the same as working as a client’s print supplier.
Venue work is shaped by the events that move through it. The same hall that hosted a major consumer show on Sunday might be wrapped for an international conference by Wednesday. That means production has to be planned around the event calendar, not around studio convenience. It means knowing the venues well enough to design installs that work with the access points, the rigging, the loading bays, and the timing windows that come with each one.
It also means understanding how visible venue work really is. A wayfinding panel at the NEC isn’t seen by hundreds of people. It’s seen by tens of thousands. Get a colour wrong, an edge cut messy, or a join obvious, and it’s not a quiet error. It’s a public one.
That’s why the partnership works the way it does. Trust isn’t a soft word here. It’s the operational reality of being the team that has to get it right, every event, every install, every time.
A Birmingham Story
The NEC Group and Hollywood Monster share more than a postcode. Both businesses were built in this city, and both have grown alongside it. The NEC has helped shape Birmingham’s identity as a destination for exhibitions, conferences, and live events for decades. Hollywood Monster has spent more than thirty years supporting brands and venues that want their work to be seen properly.
That shared local history matters. It means production runs that don’t depend on long supply chains. Installers who know the venues, the loading bays, and the access routes. And a partnership built between two teams who can sit in the same room when a project calls for it.
“When you’ve spent more than thirty years building a business in this city, you understand what an institution like the NEC Group means to Birmingham. Being trusted as their Official Print Partner is something we take very seriously. The standard the NEC Group sets for its venues, its events, and its visitors is exceptional, and it’s pushed our team to keep raising our own. A year in, we’re proud of what we’ve delivered together, and even more excited about what comes next.”
– Tim Andrews MBE, Chairman, Hollywood Monster
Twelve Months In, and Plenty Ahead
A year in, the partnership feels less like a milestone and more like a starting line. The NEC Group’s calendar for the year ahead is already taking shape, with major shows, conferences, tours, and activations on the books. Our role is to make sure every brief, whether it’s a single panel or a fully wrapped venue, is produced to a standard that holds up under the kind of scrutiny these events demand.
That’s the part that doesn’t change with scale. Whether we’re producing graphics for a small breakout space or an arena floor, the work has to look right, fit right, and arrive on time. Across 400+ events a year, that’s the standard.
Twelve months in, we’re proud of what’s been delivered. And we’re looking forward to what’s next – if you’re planning an event at any one of the NEC venues this year or next we’re here to help – get in touch below.
The Official NEC Group Print Partner. Ready for your next project.
As the Official NEC Group Print Partner, we’ve mastered the art of high-volume, high-stakes production.
From large-format graphics to bespoke structural builds, we provide the same industrial-strength reliability to every client we serve.
NEWS
We’re Hiring an Estimator: The Quiet Discipline Behind Brilliant Work
We’re Hiring an Account Manager: Join the Team Behind Some of the UK’s Most Visible Work
