Oak View Group (OVG), the global venue development, advisory and investment company for the sports and live entertainment industries, has welcomed NEC Group in Birmingham to its International Venue Alliance. NEC Group Birmingham becomes the second founding member of the Alliance, following Silverstone Circuit.
The NEC Group’s membership in the Venue Alliance covers the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham, along with the four other venues: the ICC, The Vox, Resorts World Arena and Arena Birmingham. The partnership will focus on helping the NEC drive new commercial partnerships across the venues.
The Venue Alliance is modelled on OVG’s highly successful Arena and Stadium Alliance in North America, which is an invitation-only partnership of 28 arenas which enables independent venues to attract global sponsorship opportunities, drive additional events and content, and achieve efficiencies of scale by buying together.
Commenting on the partnership, Sam Piccione, OVG’s International President said: “It’s very exciting to have NEC on board. We’ll be partnering with them as an extension to their talented sales team to find the right naming rights partner for the NEC and Arena Birmingham. We will also help them maximise new and unique commercial opportunities and additional revenue through driving content and leveraging our platform. The NEC Group is a 1st class organisation with strong leadership and plays a vital role in hosting the very best events in the UK across their portfolio of leading venues. As the Venue Alliance grows, we’ll continue to help our members in areas that are important to them and the overall business, which will extend to everything from ticketing and premium hospitality strategy, event scheduling, and unique sponsorship opportunities.”
Phil Mead, Chairman Arenas and Ticketing, NEC Group, said: “The NEC Group really recognises the mutual benefits of the Venue Alliance and will be putting plans in place to work in true partnership from the start. As a first step, we’re looking forward to dovetailing our NEC Group commercial team with the Venue Alliance team to extend the reach and resource applied to commercial rights sales. We are equally optimistic that further value will be added to our events programming through the Venue Alliance.”
The partnerships follow the launch of OVG’s International office in March; the announcement of its first European development project - the Santa Giulia arena in Milan; and the announcement that OVG is to begin public consultation on the construction of a new arena in Manchester. The Group plans to make further announcement around the growth of the Alliance in the coming weeks.
About Us
ABOUT OAK VIEW GROUP
Oak View Group (OVG) is a global sports and entertainment company founded by Tim Leiweke and Irving Azoff in 2015.
OVG is focused on being a positive disruption to business as usual in the sports and live entertainment industry and currently has eight divisions across four global offices (Los Angeles, New York, London and Philadelphia).
OVG is leading the redevelopment and operations of the New Arena at Seattle Center as well as leading arena development projects in Belmont, NY, Austin, TX and Milan, Italy.
OVG Global Partnerships, a division of OVG, is the sales and marketing arm responsible for selling across all OVG Arena Development projects.
OVG International was established to grow the success of OVG’s core business and embark on new opportunities in the live entertainment space globally. OVG International will develop a global footprint reinforcing the Arena and Stadium Alliance already successfully developed in the United States by attracting the leading and like-minded venues from Europe, Asia and the Middle-East with our common goal to Book Together, Sell Together, Buy Together, and Think Together.
Our global expertise will focus on local insights and local talent while providing OVG with a unique venue and live event offering in some of the world’s most iconic cities.
Our leadership and investors give OVG International and our partners the agility to get ahead of the trends which shape the world’s fastest growing urban cores.
ABOUT THE NEC GROUP
NEC Group is the UK’s leading live events business operating in exhibitions, conferences, music, sports, family entertainment and hospitality. The Group’s vision is to be Europe’s most successful live events business, operating leading leisure, entertainment and business destinations.
BIOGRAPHIES
Sam Piccione, President, Oak View Group International
Sam was previously Chief Commercial Officer at FIA Formula E Championship where he
delivered significant revenue growth across sponsorship, hospitality sales and partnership activation. During his time, Formula E announced the first naming rights of any
FIA regulated Motorsports Championship, a historic seven-year, nine-figure partnership with
ABB. Prior to that, Sam spent nine years in commercial management roles at AEG in the US,
China and Europe having delivered naming rights for arenas in Berlin, Paris, Shanghai and
Beijing.
Phil Mead, NEC Arenas and Ticket Factory Chairman
Phil joined the NEC Group as Managing Director, Arenas and Ticket Factory, in January 2007 and is responsible for overseeing the operation and development of Arena Birmingham, formerly the Barclaycard Arena, Genting Arena, NEC Group International and The Ticket Factory. In 2007 he created The Ticket Factory brand transforming the NEC Group’s box office into the national ticketing agent it is today.
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