At its 2024 General Assembly, the UIAA approved its seven strategic priorities for the period 2025-2028. One of these priorities focused on rock climbing and hiking and specifically:
Recognising that rock climbers and hikers constitute a significant segment of the membership base, the UIAA will devote more resources towards addressing matters important to rock climbers and identifying opportunities for growth in relation to hiking, thereby supporting the needs and expectations of its member federations while increasing its relevance to potential new members
Since the GA, both rock climbing and hiking working groups have been set up as part of the UIAA Mountaineering Commission. More on hiking will be communicated in due course.
In terms of rock climbing, the UIAA is focused on a more visible, supportive, and collaborative presence. One of the first steps will be the publication of Rock Climbing Festival Organisers Guidelines, focused on festivals inviting international participants. These guidelines will also aim to help support new and developing climbing festivals.
In 2025, the working group is looking forward to connecting with festival organisers practically and will be sending out a survey to gain feedback and insights on how best the UIAA can support before the end of the year. The connection will present an opportunity to spread the work of UIAA Commissions and expertise (across areas such as climber safety, mountain protection, ethics in climbing, etc) as part of a three-year programme and potentially offer partnerships and official representation.
In the past (from 2015 to 2019), the UIAA offered a UIAA Rock Climbing Festival Award rewarding innovative and excellent organisers for a particularly note worthy festival. This worked on a geographic rotation with the focus on a different continent each year. The UIAA is looking forward towards a relaunch of this platform and will be devising opportunities to make visits and support workshops.
In the meantime, another practical step has been the creation of an international calendar of rock and ice climbing festivals. The 2025 calendar – including 14 international events – can be found here.
This calendar is just a first step. A map version will be added in due course making it easier for climbers to identify meets in specific parts of the world. The UIAA has not yet endorsed a specific festival. However these festivals have been approved by the rock climbing working group for meeting the threshold as an international meet. If you wish to have your festival added to the list please contact the UIAA.
A dedicated website page for rock climbing festivals will be launched shortly.