From Empty Halls to an Inflatable Church: Bringing 3Generate to Life at the NEC

One of the largest events of the year for PH Production Services got the whole team together on-site, including brand new team member Elizabeth, a recent Post-Graduate Placement from Keele University.

3Generate (or 3Gen as it’s known by the team for short) is The Methodist Church’s Children and Youth Assembly. 2025’s event saw 1700 children ranging in age from 4-18 years, from different churches, all come together to participate in fun activities, workshops and worship under one roof, spanning 6 halls of the NEC in Birmingham, this 3-5 October.

PH Production Services were responsible for the production management and full technical support for the entire event. 3Generate showcases the scale, precision and teamwork that define what PH Production Services does best. Here, Elizabeth reflects on her first experience of 3Generate:

“Arriving at the NEC halls the empty space it looked huge and as this was my first experience of this event, I didn’t know what to expect. However, after two full and busy days our team of 30 crew set up the power systems, staging, audio and visual equipment. Also, some incredible props and structures (including an extremely impressive inflatable church) transformed the space ready for the groups to arrive.

There were some outstanding venues, including the Tech Hub which offered a wide choice of gaming consoles and games for the children to enjoy. The Great Outdoors hosted activities centered around the environment, and this was also the venue that housed the silent movie viewing of The Wild Robot. The Discovery Hub held various talks throughout the day discussing many different topics such as worship and people’s faith journeys. These are just a few of the 31 spaces that we helped manage at 3Gen.

Over the days I got to meet many friendly and hardworking people who worked with The Methodist Church such as volunteers, youth leaders and church leaders. Who along with the work they did setting up and maintaining the venues with PHPS, also gave some amazing talks and imaginatively engaged children in workshops, worship and their overall mission and values of the church.

The two days that the children were there went smoothly with minimal technical issues, which were quickly resolved. There were also some amazing performances by different live bands and artists on the large Orb stage. I was lucky enough to watch the Highly Sprung performance of Castaway, which is a touring outdoor arts piece about the environment and plastic pollution.

Unfortunately, the fun had to come to an end and after another successful 3Gen it was time for the children and groups to return home. This is when we began our pack down. We spent the afternoon taking down staging, power, deflating the inflatable church and placing everything in flight cases and storage containers and onto the trucks, ready to be transported into safe storage, until next time. After an afternoon of hard but productive work everything was packed away, the hall empty, as if we had never been there and ready for the next event.

As a new member of the team, I really enjoyed getting to know more of the crew and team that makes this impressive, large-scale, multi-activity youth conference happen and to see just how everything works from a production point of view. My time at 3Gen was extremely enjoyable, from interacting with and getting to know the team better, the hands-on experience and the overall inspiring and energetic atmosphere. I look forward to hopefully working with the PHPS team on the 3Generate Children and Youth Assembly, again in 2026.