Indoor climbing: artificial walls and what governs them.

What indoor climbing is

Wikipedia defines indoor climbing simply as climbing on artificial walls in gyms. The BMC (British Mountaineering Council) lists competition climbing, on artificial walls and structures, as its own type of climbing, including paraclimbing, and running from local events up to the Olympic and Paralympic Games. The BMC also notes that ice climbing, though usually done outdoors, has some indoor venues.

Several of the outdoor disciplines have an indoor form. Bouldering is done on low walls over padded mats, and roped climbing is done either on top-rope or on lead. The BMC notes that UK climbers who have only climbed indoors or on sport routes tend to use French grades.

The walls and the standard behind them

In Europe, artificial climbing structures are covered by EN 12572. The British Standards Institution (BSI) lists BS EN 12572-1:2017 as setting safety requirements and test methods for artificial climbing structures with protection points. Its catalogue page gives a publication date of 31 January 2017 and a status of "Current, Under Review".

According to BSI, Part 1 covers structures used for sport climbing in normal conditions. It includes a test that simulates a shock perpendicular to the wall surface and a test of the static strength of the connections at protection points. BSI says it does not apply to ice climbing, dry tooling or playground equipment. These are tests of the structure, carried out under the standard; they say nothing about how a climber should use a wall.

Standards catalogue pages give the series as three parts:

The Part 2 and Part 3 entries are as the Estonian Centre for Standardisation's catalogue lists them (EVS-EN 12572-2:2017 and EVS-EN 12572-3:2017, both valid from 3 February 2017, each with a 2008 edition before it). The earlier editions of Part 1 come from a search summary of catalogue pages, so they are less certain than the BSI entry for Part 1.

Auto belays

Some walls have mechanical devices that take the belayer's role on a top-rope. Wikipedia describes an auto belay as a device that lets one person climb a top-rope route without a human belayer, and says a lead auto belay mounted at the base of the route appeared in 2021. The auto belays page covers what bodies publish about them.

Bouldering walls in the UK

The Association of British Climbing Walls (ABC), in its fifth climbing wall survey, published on 6 November 2025, reported that 62% of walls opened in the previous four years offer bouldering only, and that 46% of all walls in its survey are bouldering only. The ABC's public pages give no total count of UK walls. The climbing gyms page has more from that survey and from North American counts.

Schemes for indoor climbers

Some bodies run progression schemes for people learning indoors.

• NICAS (UK). The National Indoor Climbing Award Scheme is run by the ABC Training Trust, a registered charity trading as NICAS. It has five levels: New Climber, Foundation Climber, Technical Climber, Lead Climber and Advanced Climber, and a separate bouldering scheme.
• DAV Kletterscheine (Germany). The Deutscher Alpenverein issues indoor climbing certificates at Toprope and Vorstieg (lead) levels. DAV brochures, which we could see only in search summaries, say they record completed training, are issued by qualified trainers, and have no legal or licence status, being comparable to sport achievement badges.

Wall operators publish their own requirements too. The ABC's Code of Practice says only competent users may climb roped routes unsupervised, that novices need supervision by a competent person, and that novice boulderers should have a safety induction or be supervised. Petzl, a maker, is reported in a search summary of a May 2024 safety notice to say that gyms should train staff and customers because some customers have little or no experience of these dangerous activities; we could not open the notice itself, so that wording is unconfirmed.

Competitions on artificial walls

World Climbing, which was called the IFSC (International Federation of Sport Climbing) until 10 December 2025, governs three competition disciplines, bouldering, lead and speed, as well as para climbing. World Climbing says the International Paralympic Committee announced on 26 June 2024 that para climbing would join the 2028 Paralympic Games, and on 3 June 2025 confirmed eight medal events and 80 athletes, 40 men and 40 women.