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 is set to be the biggest year yet – as it marks the 10th anniversary of the festival.

There are more artists than ever before set to jet into Glasgow for the festival this year, because, for the very first there will be additional sites across the city. 

The final public art installation of Yardwork's 3 year Yardworks GRID creative placemaking programme will see 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 will feature a host of local artists to once again rejuvenate the artwork in this significant connection between the riverside and SWG3. 

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

As well as the artists painting, the Galvanizers will be 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 is a free to access family zone, filled with creative workshops and activities for everyone to enjoy. 

There will be an attempt to break the worlds longest doodle (we attempted it last year, but we are going again – bigger and better), spray can up-cycling where you can create your own art from repurposed cans, t-shirt design stations which allow you 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 will also depart directly from SWG3, guiding you through the Yardworks-led Street Art District within the Glasgow Riverside Innovation District, where you can gain insight into the wider public artworks developed through the organisation’s year-round activity.

So, there's plenty on offer to keep everyone occupied, and there's no need to book in advance meaning you can drop in and out as you please. 

As always, there will be plenty on offer for you to eat throughout the weekend. Some of the city’s best street vendors, including Wow Burger, Streat Scullery, The Wee Taqueria and more will head down to serve 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. 

SWG3’s bars will be stocked with all your favourite drinks, making it the perfect event for a get-together with friends and family, with plenty of outdoor seating areas that are ideal for sitting down and taking in all the action.  

There's plenty more to do across the weekend, including a series of paid for, adult-only, workshops. To kick off, why not take part in our interactive sign-writing workshop? In this workshop, you'll learn the basics of traditional sign-writing, and get the chance to create your own sign which you can take home. There's also an introductory Japanese calligraphy workshop, where you can learn Japanese symbols, traditional calligraphy techniques and how to make your own tag from the Japanese alphabet. The final workshop in the series is a 'design your deck' course, where you'll be given the tools to create a beautiful and unique piece of art for your home on a high quality plywood skateboard deck. 

It's always a weekend to remember, so get down early, soak up the sun, and enjoy watching the murals being built up from a stretch of freshly painted black to a highly skilled final result. Watching the layers and details come together is one of the best things about the festival. 

Tickets can be purchased here.

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.