ICC Birmingham plans £10m facelift

The International Convention Centre (ICC) in Birmingham has embarked on a rolling three-year £10m refurbishment programme that has already provided a facelift to its largest flat-floored space, the 3,000m² Hall 3, and Registration Area, and is currently in progress throughout its Mall. As well as hall and meeting room updates, the programme also includes new digital signage and screens throughout the venue, new lighting and carpets, and toilet upgrades. This marks a boost to its already extensive ongoing maintenance schedule which has been in place since the venue opened nearly 25 years ago. Nick Waight, managing director of the ICC said: “The planned refurbishments will improve the customer experience and freshen up the venue to ensure that event organisers have the best canvas to work with when holding their events at the ICC. The work on Hall 3 was completed in August and we have had extremely positive feedback about the changes from customers.” “This comes at an exciting time for us as we’re also opening our new venue the Vox at Resorts World – and indeed for Birmingham which as a city is reaping the results of some fantastic urban regeneration projects with the unveiling of the new Grand Central and New Street Station complex last week. It really is the ideal time to rediscover Birmingham as an events destination.” The ICC holds over 350 events per year, with over 300,000 delegates and has around 80,000 people passing through its central Mall each week so careful consideration has been given to the implementation of the work to avoid disruption to the events schedule. The ICC was the UK’s first purpose-built convention centre and still benefits from the huge £200m initial investment in terms of fantastic infrastructure, access and spaces. From the perfect acoustics and sound proofing right through to chairs designed specifically to remain comfortable for long conference sessions, the ICC is an iconic venue located at the heart of Birmingham. A spokeswoman for the ICC said the works would not be paid for by hiking prices. She said:”The money for the refurbishment has come from a capital funding programme that supports the NEC Group as a whole and is used to invest in all of our venues for the future. The investment will be spent over the three years but not necessarily equally. So far, we have spent on upgrading our ICC toilets, refurbishing our Hall 3 and Mall amongst other things. We have no plans to increase our prices beyond standard inflationary rates.”