Save the Samil Half-Pipe

A Piece of Vigo's Skating Culture at Risk

For decades, the Half-Pipe at Samil has been part of the landscape of Vigo and a meeting point for generations of skaters and other urban cultures.

Inline skaters, skateboarders, BMX riders, B-Boys, dancers, DJs, graffiti artists and many others have passed through the space over the years. For the people who grew up around it, the Half-Pipe is more than a piece of infrastructure. It is part of the history of the local community.

Now, that Half-Pipe is at risk of disappearing.

A Place Shared by Generations

What makes the Samil Half-Pipe significant is not only the structure itself, but everything that has happened around it.

Different generations of riders have used the space to learn, train, meet friends and develop their own disciplines. Inline skaters and skateboarders have shared the same surroundings with BMX riders, dancers, breakers, musicians and artists, creating the kind of mixed community that has traditionally been an important part of urban action sports.

For many people in Vigo, Samil represents a place where these different cultures could exist alongside each other.

Losing the Half-Pipe would therefore mean losing more than a skating obstacle. It would remove a physical part of that history.

A Campaign to Save the Half

A group of people connected to the space has now launched a campaign to defend the Half-Pipe and keep it as part of Samil.

To support the campaign, CA Film Creatives has produced a short promotional film bringing together people from different parts of the community. The video combines present-day skating and riding with archive appearances, highlighting the generations of people who have been connected to the location.

The project also brings together inline skating, skateboarding, BMX, breaking and dance, reflecting the wider culture that has grown around Samil over the years.

The message behind the campaign is simple: if this place has been important to the community for decades, it deserves the opportunity to remain part of its future.

More Than a Piece of Concrete

Spaces like the Samil Half-Pipe can be easy to overlook when they are seen simply as physical structures. For the communities that use them, however, their value is often much harder to measure.

They provide places where people can meet without needing to be part of a commercial facility or organised programme. They give younger generations somewhere to discover skating and other disciplines, while preserving a connection with the people who were there before them.

That continuity is particularly important for rollerblading, where much of the culture and history has developed around local spots and the communities that formed around them.

The Samil Half-Pipe is one of those places.

Help Save the Half

The campaign is asking people to sign the petition and share the video to increase visibility and demonstrate how important the Half-Pipe remains to the community.

Whether you have skated it yourself or simply understand the importance of preserving spaces where urban sports and culture can develop, supporting the campaign is a way of helping make sure that this part of Samil's history is not simply erased.

This is their place. And they want it to remain part of Samil.

If you want to support the campaign, sign the petition through the link provided by the organisers and share the video using #SalvemosElHalf.

You can sign the petition here 📝