NEC named 'Venue of the Year’


The NEC picked up the ‘Venue of the Year’ Award at the prestigious AEO Excellence Awards beating off stiff competition from big venues across the UK, including Excel London, The 02 and EventCity. 

The AEO Excellence Awards represent the best that the events industry has to offer and showcases the amazing achievements from within the events industry. The illustrious event recognises and celebrates organisers’ achievements, standards of excellence from venues and service quality by suppliers and contractors throughout the industry.

The awards are judged by a panel of key players who work across various disciplines in the events industry, including; venues, suppliers and organisers. 

Commenting on the win, Kathryn James, Managing Director of the NEC, said: “The NEC has long been known to its customers as the UK’s number one venue, so we are thrilled that this status has been recognised by our industry peers.

“It has been a fantastic year for everyone associated with the NEC; we have been celebrating the venue’s 40th birthday, we became a 24-hour destination with the opening of Resorts World on our site, our customers have been experiencing fantastic growth and we smashed our financial targets for 15/16. This award win is the icing on the cake and true testament to the hard work of our venue team which I truly believe is the best in the industry.”

This is the first time that the venue has picked up the ‘Venue of the Year’ AEO award since 2001, and comes two years after its last AEO Award win when it picked up the ‘Excellence Award’ and ‘Venue Team of the Year’.

Kathryn continued: “There are some exciting developments on the horizon for the NEC, with HS2 and UK Central set to provide the framework for the development of the area around the NEC site, which will benefit both the region and our business. We will now work hard to ensure that we prepare for the future to ensure that our organisers also benefit from the opportunities that these developments will bring. With this in mind, we are confident that we won’t wait another 15 years for our next ‘Venue of the Year’ award.”

The 2016 Awards Ceremony was held at London’s Grosvenor House on Friday 17 June and hosted by well-known comedian Sir Lenny Henry.

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