The National Exhibition Centre, the UK's biggest exhibitions space, is planning a £118m reinvention in partnership with Malaysian-owned leisure group Genting Stanley and LG, the South Korean electronics group.

The managers of the Solihull venue, familiar to generations of marketing professionals who have attended trade shows there, have two objectives. First, they want to create facilities where visitors can unwind after manning stands or tramping round exhibitions. Second, they aim to update the tatty NEC Arena concert venue to exploit an upswing in the live music business.