VeXpo is the United Kingdom’s VTuber convention, and the 2026 edition runs from Friday 18 to Sunday 20 September in Halls 9 and 10 at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham. A Friday ticket is £25 and a full weekend is £75. Nine talents from the Japanese agency hololive are on the guest list, which the organisers bill as hololive’s first appearance at a British convention.
The night before the doors open, the cinema on the same campus screens hololive English’s most recent concert. Anyone travelling in for this has two things to book, on two separate tickets, inside the same square mile.
Three days of virtual performers in two NEC halls, with nine hololive talents on the bill and a concert screening the night before.
From 78 guests in 2024 to two NEC halls in 2026
VeXpo was founded in 2023 by VTuber Expo LTD, a non-profit company limited by guarantee, and held its first event in 2024. On the organisers’ own published figures it went from 78 guests in that first year to 120 guests and 2,200 attendees in 2025.
Opening times move about, so check the day you have booked against the venue’s own listing. Friday is general entry from 12:00 to 19:00, with the Opening Concert at 20:00. Saturday opens at 09:00 for Akasupa ticket holders and 11:00 for everyone else, runs to 20:00, and finishes with the Premium Concert at 21:00. Sunday is 09:00 and 10:00 respectively, closing at 18:00.
Akasupa (赤スパ) is a word borrowed from streaming. On YouTube a viewer can pay to pin a comment during a live stream, and the colour of that comment is set by how much they paid. Red is the top band, from ¥10,000 upwards, which Japanese viewers shortened from akai sūpā chatto to akasupa. VeXpo gives the name to its £200 badge, which carries a VeXpo shirt, a tote bag, ten per cent off official merchandise, a Discord role, a double wave entry into the meet and greet draws and the early start on both weekend mornings. Single days are £25 on Friday, £55 on Saturday and £45 on Sunday.
Nine hololive talents, appearing as avatars on the Monarch Stage
The hololive guests are Hakos Baelz, Ouro Kronii, Shiori Novella, Gigi Murin, Elizabeth Rose Bloodflame, Cecilia Immergreen and Raora Panthera from the agency’s English branch, joined by Ayunda Risu and Moona Hoshinova from hololive Indonesia.
All nine are listed as virtual guests. A VTuber is a live performer who appears as an animated character instead of on camera, so the avatar comes to Birmingham, the person inside stays where they are, and the performance is sent to the hall.
The hololive items run under hololive Meet, the brand Cover Corporation uses for its stage events, and all three sit on the Monarch Stage.
- Friday, 15:00. A screening of hololive English 3rd Concert -All For One-.
- Saturday, 14:30. The hololive English -Justice- panel, with Elizabeth Rose Bloodflame, Cecilia Immergreen and Raora Panthera.
- Sunday, 13:00. The hololive Meet Karaoke Relay, with Elizabeth Rose Bloodflame and Ayunda Risu.
Hakos Baelz appears again on Saturday night in The VX Factor, the 21:00 showcase, on a bill drawn from well outside the agency.
Serendipity at Cineworld Birmingham NEC, Thursday 17 September
hololive English 4th Concert -Serendipity- was staged at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles on 3 and 4 July 2026, with all fifteen members of hololive English across the two nights and four guests from the agency’s Japanese and Indonesian branches: Ookami Mio, Tsunomaki Watame, Vestia Zeta and Kobo Kanaeru. The two nights ran different setlists. European audiences get both of them in one sitting on one ticket.
Birmingham opens a six city European run and is ticketed separately from VeXpo as a collaboration, from £55. This is a recorded concert on a cinema screen, and the room is still expected to make noise, so the tour publishes its own rules.
- Penlights are welcome up to 20cm, and staff can ask you to dim one bright enough to spoil the view for others.
- Cosplay is encouraged, and official hololive clothing especially.
- Seating is unreserved. Two queues go in, VIP holders first.
- Photographs are for the designated photo zones only, and nothing filmed inside the screening goes online.
- Merchandise is sold in the room, with no online order, and VIP tickets include some.
- Tickets are not refundable.
Meet and greet draws, an artist alley and two more stages
Meet and greet places are drawn in a ballot instead of going on general sale, and the 2026 ballot opened on 20 August. The convention’s own video below sets out how the waves work and which dates matter. Watch it first if meeting a particular performer is why you are going.
Planning a weekend, and a ballot entry, around one performer has a name in Japan. It is oshikatsu, the habit of actively backing the one act you have picked out, and it is the same instinct behind the penlight colours in the cinema the night before.
Away from the Monarch Stage there is a Jubilee Stage and two panel rooms. Friday afternoon has a cosplay showcase and a maid cafe set from Maids Of England. Saturday brings PhaseVision, a singing competition, at 11:30, plus panels running from Live2D animation for beginners to how to survive a meet and greet with the performer you care most about. Friday is also the community day, with an artist alley, a gaming area and an arts and crafts area.
Milan, Barcelona, Paris, Düsseldorf and Berlin, to 18 October
Birmingham is the first of six Serendipity dates, and the run reaches into late October.
- Cineworld Birmingham NEC, Birmingham, 17 September 2026
- UCI Cinemas Bicocca, Milan, 26 September 2026
- Phenomena Experience, Barcelona, 3 October 2026
- UGC Ciné Cité Bercy, Paris, 10 October 2026
- UFA-Palast Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, 17 October 2026
- Colosseum Berlin, Berlin, 18 October 2026
Tickets across the European dates start at €50. The tour is licensed and staged by Virtual Stage Productions, a British company that has spent four years building the technical and venue side of this. Its founder Ruicheng Lei set out how the machinery works in our interview on getting hololive’s concerts into European rooms, including why a chant friendly screening asks more of a British crowd than a Japanese one.
The NEC Birmingham
Where to follow VeXpo and hololive for the next dates
Ticket tiers, the full stage timetable and the meet and greet ballot all live on the VeXpo ticket page. Remaining cinema dates are sold through the Serendipity screening tour, and hololive’s convention appearances worldwide are listed on hololive Meet. For everything else Japanese happening in Britain this autumn, our events listings are updated as dates are confirmed.
