Birmingham NEC Arena Review

Safeconcerts asks the questions that you want the answers to

We received a complaint following the Fleetwood Mac gig at the NEC Arena in November 2003 as was previously highlighted on Safeconcerts. This led us to wonder about the venue and as we were in Birmingham for the weekend of the 24/25th April we thought this would provided us with a golden opportunity to take a look at the Birmingham NEC Arena and rate it for ourselves and for you.

As luck would have it on the night of the 25th Duran Duran were playing at the NEC coinciding nicely with our plans, we were lucky enough to purchase some late availability tickets and off we went to complete our assessment.

The promoters for this particular gig were SJM Concerts and Clear Channel, Stewarding and Security was in-house. The venue has capacity for 13,000 and on this night 13,000 very ecstatic Duran Duran fans were out in force with queues beginning to form before 6pm when the doors where due to open.

So what did we at Safeconcerts think of the Birmingham NEC Arena and how do we rate it?

To be honest we were really impressed, we spoke to quite a few people at the gig and every person that we spoke to was positive - favouring the NEC over and above many other well known venues that they had visited.

Facilities for people with disabilities appeared to be good - we took the opportunity of speaking to some of the people who had used them they really rated it highly - they told us that there were excellent facilities available to them from the moment they arrive in the car park. They struggled to come up with anything negative at all and after some considerable thought one man said that the seats for their companions were poor and uncomfortable - that was the only negative point he could find to make. So we think that for people who have a disability the NEC Arena rates very highly.

The venue itself was well set out with good sound quality and there appeared to be a good view of the stage wherever you happen to be seated; this means that you really are able to see, hear and therefore enjoy the show that you've paid to see, the only possible criticism would be that the seats are rather small, crammed together and a bit uncomfortable. Exits were well marked and clear, at the end of the concert the arena cleared remarkably quickly so the only real criticism here would be that there was no safety announcement prior to the commencement of the show.

From what we observed and from various conversations we had with people the Stewarding and Security were excellent, we asked lots of questions of various different members of staff, at all times they were polite, helpful, courteous and professional - they didn't know who we were or that we would be writing up responses for safeconcerts so we feel confident that the high level of professionalism we observed is indicative of the general level of customer care that the audience can expect when visiting this venue. There appeared to be plenty of staff on duty, they had uniforms and were clearly visable - we score stewarding and security highly.

On leaving the venue there initially appeared to be the general and expected scrum in the car park, however, staff were on duty and managing the exit well - so well in fact that to our absolute amazement we found ourselves on the motorway and on our way home within 30 minutes of the concert ending.

We looked really hard to find things to criticise and to be honest we really struggled, the only negatives that we could come up with were:

• Touts were openly selling tickets under the noses of security staff.
• There was no safety announcement prior to the commencement of the entertainment
• Tickets and signs stated that mobile phones and cameras weren't allowed, in fact they were, better clarification of this issue would be helpful
• The seats at the venue are very small and crammed together
• There was no host on stage to inform audience about what's happening and when
• Some people were allowed to stand in the aisles once the show started.

Of course the audience were very easy to please and very well behaved - thus they were probably really easy to manage, so we at Safeconcerts will return when there is a different type of act in order to make a comparison, but to be honest with you we felt comfortable and confident at this venue and we certainly recommend it.

Taking all the factors into consideration, we, at Safeconcerts rated the NEC Arena very highly as a venue and we give it a 4 star rating - a proper safety announcement to the audience at the start of the show would certainly raise this rating.

Oh - and Duran Duran did a pretty good set!

Score 4 out of 5

Send your comments to: debs@safeconcerts.com