Glasgow’s Riverside Museum set to host Urban Sports Weekend

A free festival set up to encourage children to try urban sports is taking place at Glasgow’s Riverside Museum this weekend.

The Riverside Jam: Urban Sports Weekend will be held on Saturday 21 and Sunday 22 June (11am to 7pm) at the Riverside Skate Spot, which will stage skateboarding and BMX sessions for beginners as well as freestyle competitions involving expert boarders and bikers.

There will also be DJs, street food and chances to win a range of prizes, including four brand-new BMXs donated by Scottish Cycling.

Riverside Jam is organised by the Riverside Museum – run by Glasgow Life, the charity that leads culture, events and active living in Glasgow – in partnership with The Loading Bay, Glasgow Urban Sports and re:ply Skateboards.

The event organisers will supply all the equipment needed so youngsters can try out and enjoy urban sports, with boards, bikes, helmets and pads provided.

The 2025 Riverside Jam is the second instalment of the event. The foundations for the festival were laid when ramps were added to the skatepark outside the Riverside Museum in 2014.

As the nearby Govan-Partick bridge was being designed, the Riverside team introduced more features to the landscape to create the ‘Skate Spot’. The Skate Spot is a safe space for urban sports including skateboarding, BMX, quad skating and scootering which features seven built-in obstacles to slide and grind along.

The first Riverside Jam event was held at the official opening of the Skate Spot in October 2024. It was so popular, the Riverside Museum was asked to create an annual event.

This year’s Riverside Jam will offer festivalgoers a chance to get involved in come-and-try BMX and skateboarding classes from 11am to 3pm on both days. The sessions are led by The Loading Bay and best suited for age eight and above, but children aged five and older are more than welcome. The lessons involve full-sized skateboards, with smaller ramps and bikes available for all abilities and sizes.

From 3pm to 7pm on Saturday, when Riverside Museum will mark its 14th anniversary since opening, some of the best skateboarders in the country will battle it out during a series of competitions.

The first day of the festival will also feature a free Go Skate talk at noon, when artists Raydale Dower and Toby Paterson will share insights into the Skate Spot’s design evolution. The artists will also discuss the role skateboarding and BMX play in Glasgow’s culture and share plans for another ambitious project led by Glasgow Urban Sports: Devon Street Urban Park, beneath the M74 on the city’s southside.

On Sunday, stars of Scotland’s BMX scene such as Kriss Kyle, Alex Donnachie and Sean Munro will face off in a Red Bull high air contest and compete for a cash prize from 3pm to 7pm.

In the lead-up to the Riverside Jam, Riverside Museum’s Skate Spot has also held BMX and skateboarding workshops for Glasgow schools, run by The Loading Bay. The Loading Bay sessions give school pupils a chance to try skateboarding and BMXing under the safe supervision of the team which opened Glasgow’s first indoor skatepark.

The school workshops at the Skate Spot are supported by the Wheels in Motion Fund, which has awarded £150,000 of grants to 23 organisations across Glasgow to roll out new ideas which encourage people to become more physically active by getting on a bike, skateboarding, rollerskating or scootering.

The Glasgow City Council fund – administered by Glasgow Life – opened in January and made grants of between £1,000 and £10,000 available to eligible projects that help residents, particularly from underrepresented groups, to take part in cycling and wheeled sports.

Jack Mills, Centre Manager at The Loading Bay, said: “The Riverside Jam is something very special and unique – most museums would throw you out instead of facilitating and helping to fund the weekend. We are very excited to help put on a show for everyone over the two days and celebrate the thriving urban sports scene that Glasgow has. There has been a lot of work behind the scenes to pull all the different organisations and sponsors together for one big weekend, but it will all be worth it!”

Toby Paterson, Artist and Skateboarder at Glasgow Urban Sports, said: “Everyone at Glasgow Urban Sports is excited about the Riverside Jam, which is exactly the kind of vibrant event that we had envisaged when we were working together with the Riverside Museum to deliver the new spot. It shows just what a grassroots scene can do with the enlightened support of city institutions. We very much hope it’s the first in a long line of innovative events that both we and The Loading Bay are working to host here and at the future Devon Street Urban Park.”

Danny Aubrey, Founder of re:ply Skateboards, said: “The Riverside Museum plaza has positively impacted the Glasgow urban sports community, and having such a supportive team at the museum and at the council has helped create a destination for skateboarders and BMXers worldwide. We wanted to celebrate the amazing space by hosting a festival annually where everyone can get involved and see the unlimited benefits of urban sports, with the hope that it can expand each year. The Riverside Jam is only a section of what Glasgow's urban sports landscape is beginning to look like. With progress on the Glasgow urban sports Devon Street plaza, various DIY skateparks and indoor spaces like The Loading Bay and Unit 23, I'm super excited and optimistic that urban sports will explode in the city.”