Yardworks Festival 2026

Since launching, Yardworks Festival has become a leading showcase of contemporary urban art, and has made itself a firm fixture on the urban art and graffiti scene, attracting artists from around the globe – and 2026 was the the biggest year yet – as it marked the 10th anniversary of the festival.

A key highlight of the weekend was the introduction of the Street Arts Prize – a new initiative launched by Andrew Leitch, in memory of his late partner, to support emerging Scotland-based artists. The £1,000 award was presented live at the launch night of festival, with winner Katie Guthrie, also known as KMG, receiving the opportunity to create new work as part of the Yardworks programme. 

This year, more artists than ever before jetted into Glasgow for the festival this year, because, for the very first there were additional sites across the city. 

The final public art installation of Yardwork's 3 year Yardworks GRID creative placemaking programme saw 16 of the Kingston Bridge pillars transformed by local and international artists over the Yardworks weekend and beyond into May. As well as this, the recently established legal wall space at the clyde walkway featured a host of local artists to once again rejuvenate the artwork in this significant connection between the riverside and SWG3. 

SWG3 was still main hub of activity across the weekend, and welcomed the likes of AROE, .EPOD, Peachzz, PizzaBoy, KMG, SNUB23, Molly Hankinson, and many more. 

As well as the artists painting, the Galvanizers was transformed into a market space, filled with traders, artisan makers and grassroots retailers, including GPS Vintage, Grateful Gallery, Focus Pocus, and Hakon Shop, amongst others. 

This year, there was a free to access family zone, filled with creative workshops and activities for everyone to enjoy. 

There was an attempt to break the worlds longest doodle (we attempted it last year, but went again – bigger and better), spray can up-cycling where you could create your own art from repurposed cans, t-shirt design stations which allowed kids to transform Yardworks t-shirts from previous years into new garments and bags using fabric pens, patches and heat press vinyl, building blocks, posca doodle walls, and everyone's favourite – the cubes. These giant cubes bring together people over the course of the weekend to unleash their inner artist and decorate the cubes however they like. 

New for 2026, Street Art Cycling Tours also departed directly from SWG3, guiding punters through the Yardworks-led Street Art District within the Glasgow Riverside Innovation District, where they gained insight into the wider public artworks developed through the organisation’s year-round activity. 

As always, there was plenty on offer to eat throughout the weekend. Some of the city’s best street vendors, including Wow Burger, Streat Scullery, The Wee Taqueria and more served up fried chicken, bao buns, tacos, pizza, loaded fries and award-winning churros from Loop and Scoop, as well as ice cream from Tony’s Ice Cream Van. 

There's was plenty more to do across the weekend, including a series of paid for, adult-only, workshops, kicking off with our interactive sign-writing workshop. In this workshop, attendees learned the basics of traditional sign-writing, and got the chance to create their own sign which they then took home. There was also an introductory Japanese calligraphy workshop, and a 'design your deck' course, where attendees were given the tools to create a beautiful and unique piece of art for their home, on a high quality plywood skateboard deck. 

It truly was a weekend to remember - 10 years, marked in style. 

About Yardworks Festival

Since launching in 2017, it’s safe to say the word is now very much out, with the annual Yardworks festival now attracting the global elite of the street arts and graffiti scene. Highlights so far have included the graffiti maze (200 metres of super smooth concrete and steel, painted live in front of the audience), Mia McGregor’s global-participation art project Cubes, a talk from author, photographer and subway artist Martha Cooper, the commissioning of the huge, Classical-art-inspired mural by PichiAvo that you see today in our Galvanizers, and the launch of Yardworks Studio.

For local artists, it’s a chance to learn from the best, meet their heroes, and get inspired by what people are doing elsewhere. For the audience, it’s a weekend of witnessing murals being created live, from scratch, in front of you, child-friendly art workshops and activities, or just drinking it all in with a pint and street food in hand. For Glasgow, it’s a visual celebration of the city’s artistic ambition, its style, and the importance it places on nurturing — and sharing — the joy of creativity.

Outside of the festival, it puts the city on the map as a stomping ground for international artists, who drop in to SWG3 year-round to mark a piece of our territory in their own inimitable style. For local artists, it represents something absolutely essential to the community: a place to express themselves in a safe and legal space.