National Championships 2026: Why You Should Be at BaySixty6 This September

The UK's biggest skateboarding event of the year is almost here. On 12–13 September, BaySixty6 in London hosts the Skateboard GB National Championships – Street, the pinnacle of the domestic competition calendar and the closest thing UK skateboarding has to a national final.

Entries for the Street event are now closed, which tells you everything about where the sport currently stands: this is no longer a niche gathering. It's a two-day showcase of the best street skateboarding talent in the country, watched by a community that has grown faster in the last five years than at any point since the sport's 1980s boom.

Spectator tickets are limited and on sale now. With the event only a few weeks away, availability will not last – if you want to be at BaySixty6 to watch the UK's top skaters compete, buy your spectator tickets here before they sell out.

What's Happening at the National Championships

• Dates: 12–13 September 2026
• Venue: BaySixty6, London – one of the UK's most iconic skate parks
• Format: Elite Street competition, featuring the top-ranked skaters in the country
• Extras: Community activations throughout both days, plus giveaways from event partners Subway and Eager Drinks
• Tickets: A limited number of spectator tickets are available now – entry applications themselves are closed, so spectating is the way in

Results from the Championships feed directly into Skateboard GB's performance pathways, helping shape who progresses toward international and Olympic qualification. Watching this event means watching the athletes who could be representing Great Britain on the world stage in years to come.

Who Are Skateboard GB, and Why Do They Matter?

Skateboard GB is the National Governing Body for skateboarding in the UK, responsible for everything from grassroots participation to the Olympic performance programme. The organisation in its current form was formed at the end of 2017, originally focused on Olympic qualification, working alongside Skateboard England, which had been supporting grassroots skateboarding since 2015.

In December 2020, the two organisations restructured into a single body under the Skateboard GB name, bringing grassroots development and elite performance under one roof. That decision was about avoiding duplicated resources and giving UK skateboarding one clear, consistent voice, rather than splitting attention across separate organisations.

Since then, Skateboard GB has:

• Built and grown MySkate, an app mapping over 1,600 skateparks across the UK
• Organised the National Championships as the primary route to Olympic qualifying points
• Supported three Team GB skaters at the Paris 2024 Olympics, including a bronze medal for Sky Brown
• Grown to a team of 18 staff, expanding coach development and talent progression programmes across the country

The organisation works closely with Skateboard Scotland and Skateboard:NI, with a Welsh governing body also in development, to make sure the UK's skate scene is supported at every level, not just the elite end.

Why UK Skateboarding Is Growing

Skateboarding's Olympic debut at Tokyo 2020 was a turning point. Sky Brown's bronze medal at just 13 years old, as Great Britain's youngest-ever summer Olympian, put the sport in front of a national audience for the first time. Skateboard GB reported a 30% increase in website traffic and a 200% rise in skatepark searches on MySkate in the immediate aftermath.

That interest has held. Skateboard GB now puts the number of active skateboarders in the UK at around 750,000, with at least 10% having taken up the sport in recent years. The growth has not been even across the board – female participation has risen by roughly 24% year on year, driven by dedicated female-only sessions at skateparks, regional female skate groups, and the visibility of riders like Sky Brown and Bombette Martin.

Olympic status has also changed how skateboarding is treated by local authorities and landowners. Skateboard GB has used that legitimacy to make the case for more skateable public spaces, which in turn makes the sport more accessible to new riders who don't have a dedicated park nearby.

The National Championships sit at the centre of all this. It's the event where the results of that growth are visible in one place: more entrants, higher standards, and a bigger crowd every year.

Get Your Tickets Before They're Gone

With the event just weeks away and spectator numbers capped, tickets are moving fast. This is a rare chance to watch the UK's best street skaters compete for national titles and Olympic qualifying points, at one of the country's most recognisable skate parks.