Our visit to the 2025 Motorcycle Live show at the NEC…

Walking to the NEC from the car park

This is a review of our visit to the November 2025 Motorcycle Live show at the NEC in Birmingham…

Not been to the bike show at the Birmingham NEC for about 10 years so decided to go and have a look around. Overall it was a good day out. We spent about 4 hours there but you could easily spend a whole day there as there’s loads to see and do.

Note about parking – We got there about 10.15 and there were LOADS of spaces so parking wasn’t an issue. Only advice I would give is BUY YOUR PARKING TICKET IN ADVANCE! We did and parking cost £10 for the day on the official parking site, if you buy it on the day at the car park it’s £18.50!
Car park is about 10 mins walk from the show and there’s a shopping center on the way if you need the loo.

View of the hall and a few of the stalls

Tickets for the show were £35 each (per person). You may be able to get them cheaper somewhere but we decided to go on an impulse/last minute so only had a quick look and couldn’t find any discounts.

The first things we saw as we came in were several Chinese bike stands (MotoGB, QJ Motors and Yamasaki) and the Triumph stand

Several Chinese bike stands

Got to admit, the Chinese bike stands were impressive, their bikes have come a long way and staff on the stands took time to chat to people. The quality of the bikes seems quite good (although I’ve not ridden any so don’t know what they are like long term) and the prices are lower then then major manufacturers.
Got to say thanks to the MotoGB staff member who really took time for a chat with us, also really knew his stuff about bikes in general (not just the MotoGB range).

The usual people selling show stuff

Throughout the show there are loads of stands selling helmets, clothing, posters, leather cream, visor cleaners and other general tat.

Various different motorbike manufacturer stands

There were LOADS of different manufacturers on display, we went Wednesday earlier in the day (got there at half 10) so there weren’t too many people there, 12pm onwards it got busy.
Harley Davidson, BMW and Ducati had good displays but they were PACKED with people (especially the BMW and Harley stands), Benelli was OK, but apart from the exhausts on their bikes they didn’t seem to have the ‘WOW’ factor they used to have (same with Ducati for me personally). BSA looked good but the bikes seemed a bit cheap and they had a big, dark stand with not many bikes on it.
Harley’s aren’t my thing but they are impressive looking bikes and the staff member we spoke to on the stand knew his stuff and had a sense of humor (which is good to see).

Racing bikes on display around the hall

There were quite a few racing bikes on display around the hall, including the Iron Maiden ‘Trooper Beer’ sponsored bike.
Unfortunately, they all had the usual ‘please do not sit on this bike’ signs on them!

Well, it wouldn’t be the bike show without these signs plastered everywhere!

Various electric bikes from Honda, Ultraviolette and Zero at the show

Towards the rear of the show (by the ‘have a go on an electric bike’ bit) were various electric bike manufacturers, Zero was a bit underwhelming, they had an odd custom bike that I couldn’t see the point of.
Honda had several electric bikes and one you could sit on and play with the display (think these might have been concept bikes though?).
There was a stand near Zero bikes with a manufacturer called Ultraviolette (electric bikes) which was impressive, especially the center piece bike pictured above and they had they set up so you could use the buttons and displays on the bikes (although 1 kept setting it’s alarm off every time you pressed a button!).
There was also an area where you could book and have a test ride on an electric bike which was cool, and you could get a ride in an electric bubble car 🙂

Things we especially liked at the show…

Interesting stuff at the show including an electric bubble car, the Krazy Horse stand, Langen and Norton stands, the Honda V3 prototype and the bikes on the National Motorcycle Museum stand

• Microlino Bubble Cars – Electric bubble cars including one you can have a drive of, really quirky things and the lowest powered one can be driven with a provisional motorcycle license! 🙂
• Krazy Horse Customs – Loads of odd and interesting stuff including a Morgan 3 wheeler and a bike that looks like it’s made from purple rocks!
• National Motorcycle Museum – Interesting stuff including things with guns you can sit on and photograph (disappointingly none of the guns work!)
• Honda V3 prototype – Honda had an ok stand, wasn’t overly impressed with the new, regular bikes but it’s worth going to see for the V3 prototype bike and they had several electric bikes
• Langen Motorcycles – Had a good chat with one of the staff on the stand, got to admit they are out of our price range (the Lightspeed is £44k!) but the 2 stroke, 250cc bike is a good looking bike
• Norton Motorcycles – The stand was busy so couldn’t speak to anyone, I’m guessing they are going to be expensive but we liked the more minimalist styling of the bikes and the Manx R really catches your eye!

Things that we found a but meh at the show…

For us personally the Kawasaki, Suzuki and Yamaha stands where a bit dull (bare in mind we haven’t been for 10 years!)

Kawasaki – The land of green plastic fantastic! Kawasaki just seem to have plastered everything in more plastic, shoved a digital dash on and made the bikes more uncomfortable?

Suzuki – Again, just shove a digital dash on it and make it more uncomfortable. The staff member we spoke to on the stand didn’t have alot to say either, just that they’d re-released the GSXR1000 and the Katana is possibly the most uncomfortable bike I’ve ever sat on!

Yamaha – Same as above, bit dull, the new YZF bikes just look smaller. Only bike that looked a bit different was the XSR900, but when you look closely it’s a bit of a bitser?

Aerofoils everywhere – This is a personal thing but I can’t stand the aerofoils, especially the front ones that are everywhere now!

Don’t know if it’s me but bikes, especially sports bikes, seem to have got alot smaller almost to the point of ridiculously small?

Abba bike stands at the NEC show, defiantly worth having a look as they make impressive kit

All in all it was worth going to the Motorcycle Live show, we had a good time and there was some interesting stuff on stands.
We found it interesting that the major manufacturers seemed to have less to offer while the smaller manufacturers seemed to give alot more for your money?
Also, there seemed to be alot of people walking around with bags of new bike gear (helmets, jackets etc) so it looks like there are still deals to be had at the show!

So was it worth the £35 ticket price? For us personally, yes, it was a good show. Lots to see and do, people to chat to etc.
As anyone who’s been will know, food, drink etc is EXPENSIVE at the show. But that’s the same at any show.
Would like to thank the exibitors who took time to talk to us and the NEC staff who were polite, friendly and helpful 🙂

If you’ve got any questions, comments or suggestions please feel free to leave them below 🙂

Disclaimer: The information on this page is correct to the best of our knowledge. But the info should NOT be taken as 100% accurate as we can, occasionally make mistakes and this article is based on our experiences and opinions!