Schwimmparade Donaukanal

In the organizer's words:

On August 29, 2026 - at the end of the summer vacations - the third Danube Canal Swimming Parade will take place. As usual, this year's parade will continue from Herrmannpark downstream to the Rotundenbrücke bridge. You can find all the information about the course, participation and tickets here on the official website from spring.

Organized by the Danube Canal Swimming Club , the swimming parade sees itself as a living democracy and participation project and aims to draw attention to inner-city swimming in Vienna. Cities such as Copenhagen, Zurich and most recently Paris are leading the way and promoting river swimming as an urban practice to improve the quality of life and as a way to cool off in increasingly hot summers. In Vienna, too, swimming in the Danube Canal was practiced by large sections of the population until the middle of the last century. We at the Danube Canal Swimming Club would like to build on this tradition. The swimming parade combines sporting activity with cultural and social participation in the city and shows what urban waterways can be: freely accessible and lively places for everyone. In the middle of the city, in the middle of summer. As an important sign for the normalization and visualization of swimming in the Danube Canal, the two sold-out events in recent years have already been a complete success. This year we want to open up participation to an even larger and wider audience!

The Donaukanal Swimming Club was founded in 2020 by four students of the Social Design course at the University of Applied Arts Vienna as an artistic practice. The Donaukanal Swimming Club was later founded as an open, non-profit cultural association with the aim of reviving urban swimming culture on the Danube Canal. The Donaukanal Swimming Club has set itself the goal of opening up and reclaiming the Danube Canal as a consumer-free recreational space through community involvement and participation. With more than 350 members, the association is active along the Danube Canal and collaborates with various initiatives and institutions both within Vienna and internationally. At www.schwimmvereindonaukanal.org you can find more information about the program beyond the swimming parade and about the association.