BBC sends stars to Glasgow for Commonwealth Games

Scottish pop icons Simple Minds and Texas, Still Game stars Ford Kiernan and Greg Hemphill, stunt biker Danny McAskill and Scottish Opera will stage free performances at a pop-up BBC venue being set up in Glasgow for the Commonwealth Games.

Jack (Ford Keirnan) and Victor (Greg Hemphill) will be in Glasgow. Picture: BBC/PA

Singers Steve Earle, Paloma Faith and Amy Macdonald, and comics Fred MacAulay and Jonathan Watson will also feature in a line-up of more than 70 events being staged next to the BBC’s Pacific Quay headquarters.

Indoor and outdoor venues will be created at the temporary riverside arena, which will operate between 19 July and 3 August and play host to a string of live broadcasts of BBC TV and radio programmes.

Among the shows due to visit the site will be A Question of Sport, The One Show, Ken Bruce’s Radio 2 programme, Radio 4’s Women’s Hour, Radio 3’s Jazz Line-Up and Radio Scotland’s Culture Studio. Tickets for all BBC at the Quay events will be available from 30 May.

The entire 2014 opening ceremony will also be beamed live into the arena on 23 July.

Sharon Mair, BBC project executive for the Commonwealth Games, said: “I’m delighted we have managed to bring so many of the big BBC brands to the site.

“It will be an amazing 16 days of music, culture, sport and entertainment that will complement the fantastic sport that will be celebrated over the Commonwealth Games.”