NEC Birmingham

NEC Birmingham is an exhibition space that has 20 interconnected halls set in a space of 611 acres. It was built next to Birmingham Airport and Birmingham International Railway Station and opened in 1976.

It was the venue of the Art & Antiques For Everyone fair which previously took place three times per year, as well as the Art, Antiques & Interiors Expo which was launched after the former event was cancelled in 2023.


Morris at NEC

01 September 2004

ANDREW Morris is to be the new chief executive of Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre Group, taking over from Barry Cleverdon who retires next year.

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Why the NEC ‘Everyone’ fair is always worth checking out...

21 July 2004

AFTER June in London, the first major fair on the calendar is the long-established summer version of Antiques For Everyone at the National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham. It will be held this year in Halls 17-19 from July 29 to August 1.

Close to a bumper Brum

28 April 2004

THERE were signs of an improving trade climate at the Antiques For Everyone fair held at Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre from April 15 to 18, and this is particularly significant at the country’s largest vetted antiques event.

Instead of a buzz, it’s blizzards at fine-looking Forum fair...

13 February 2004

JUST about six weeks into the new year and on the antiques fair front things are much like last year. Fairs so far have neither really flourished nor foundered. At best they tick over with some dealers doing very well. At worse they end with no exhibitors having enjoyed any real success. We are still waiting for the blockbuster fair.

New year, new start for Birmingham…

23 January 2004

FAR from mourning the demise of the January LAPADA fair, which ran for 13 years at Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre, the trade seem to have embraced its successor, The National Fine Art and Antiques Fair, which will be launched at this favoured venue from January 28 to February 1.

Familiar ground for Fran

08 January 2004

THERE is a deal of trade excitement at the latest initiative of that accomplished organiser Fran Foster, who from January 28 to February 1 launches the National Fine Art and Antiques Fair at The National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham.

Answer to our winter of discontent found in Birmingham

11 December 2003

AFTER what was for most a disappointing November Olympia fair, the last chance for many dealers to save another difficult year was the Winter Antiques For Everyone at Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre from November 27 to 30. And for plenty of the 600 or so exhibitors it did just that.

Centrex bag top names for new January fair

14 October 2003

APPLICATIONS from dealers to join the first National Fine Art and Antiques Fair, to be held at Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre next year from January 28 to February 1, already suggest that this could be a major player on the national fairs scene.

Lenkiewicz’s public love affair burns on

30 September 2003

The Establishment remains unconvinced but eccentric’s studio sale is a sell-out: HAVING claimed to have slept with 3000 women, and certainly having fathered at least 15 children and kept open studio for the entire community of local vagrants, one of whom he kept embalmed in a drawer for 15 years, the Plymouth painter Robert Lenkiewicz (1941-2002) was undoubtedly one of the great larger-than-life characters of British post-War art.

August proceedings set style at NEC

24 July 2003

HIGH summer’s high spot for many collectors and dealers is the oldest of the three annual Antiques For Everyone fairs at Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre, the summer version of which will take place from July 31 to August 3.

Howard sets NEC standards at centre

13 June 2003

BRITISH pottery specialist John Howard, whose particular enthusiasm is Staffordshire, is a familiar figure at quality fairs and when I caught up with him last week on his stand at Olympia he told me that there had been some changes on the home front.

NEC will end January LAPADA fair to make way for their own event

12 May 2003

AFTER more than two decades, the January LAPADA fair at Birmingham’s NEC has come to an end.

NEC exceeds low expectations

24 April 2003

ALMOST all the exhibitors at the giant Antiques For Everyone fair, held at Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre from April 3 to 6, arrived with far from high hopes. This was just as well for a good many of them, but not for all.

New name, new rules and new material for the NEC

28 March 2003

FROM April 3 to 6 the Spring staging of the Antiques For Everyone fair fills Hall 5 of Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre with what the organisers always claim to be more than 600 dealers, staked out in the now familiar format of Section One and Section Two.

Birmingham in January – a barometer for the rest of 2003

10 January 2003

FOR a decade LAPADA, our largest antiques association, has held its winter showcase event at the National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham and indeed the Birmingham LAPADA Antiques and Fine Art Fair has become the favourite out-of-London fair for a good many exhibitors.

Good sales but no major upturn at Birmingham

21 January 2002

IT was apparent on the second day of the first major fair of the year, The LAPADA Antiques and Fine Art Fair which opened at Birmingham’s NEC on January 16, that there is no marked upturn in business following a despondent 2001.

Any time, any place…

14 August 2001

NOWADAYS Antiques For Everyone seems to be antiques for everywhere, which proves that a successful formula will travel. At the beginning of July Fran Foster of Birmingham’s Centre Exhibitions, the organiser who pioneered that formula, for the first time took her fair to Manchester; then from August 2 to 5 she was back at her Birmingham base for the summer version of the thrice-yearly Antiques For Everyone at the NEC.

New Year new look

31 January 2000

UK: THE eighth LAPADA Fair opened in its new hall with a new look at Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre last Wednesday, January 19, 2000.

Fairs deal to boost international trade

06 December 1999

UK: CENTRE Exhibitions, who organise the Antiques For Everyone fairs at Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre, and the top Irish fairs organiser Louis O’ Sullivan are collaborating on a plan to internationalise both the NEC fairs and the Irish trade.

Puzzle of the peter-out pattern

19 April 1999

UK: WITH more than 500 dealers and a vast array of stock there are bound to be varying fortunes, but on the whole the Spring Antiques For Everyone fair at Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre from April 8 to 11 again proved itself a fair to be reckoned with.

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