The Alps came to Battersea over the weekend in the form of the second annual London Freeze Big Air, an outdoor snowboard, ski and music festival in the grounds of Battersea Power Station.

More than 50 riders from 12 nations came to London to show their skills on a 30-metre-high jump decked out with 500 tonnes of real snow. The sight of it towering over the local area was impressive but unfortunately on Sunday rainy weather turned the snow slushy and there was a three-hour delay to the International Freestyle Ski Big Air competition, one of the highlights of the event.

The weather was appropriately Arctic and the most sensible in the audience - consisting mostly of teenagers on a 10 o'clock curfew - were wearing woolly hats and boots. Because of the earlier downpour the ground was muddy and spectators had to avoid big puddles shimmering with the arty reflection of the iconic white chimneys of the power station. Luckily, the main sponsor, LG, had three Twitter reporters on site which came in handy with the delays. They gave updates on the schedule and saved festival-goers from freezing their faces off.

The commentator for the International Freestyle Ski Big Air was a gnarly Californian skater-dude type, who was suitably down with the kids. As the pros and ski superstars strutted their stuff in mid-air his voice boomed out of speakers offering insights such as “this trick is sick” and “awesometastic”. The winner announced at the end of the night was Australian Russ Henshaw who walked away with a $5,000 prize.

The event also marked the London leg of the Snowboard World cup. Ben Kilner, Britain's top-ranked snowboarder, finished 14th of 53 competitors. Ben was the top home finisher but first place was awarded to Stefan Gimpl, the leading Austrian, who was celebrating his 30th birthday. The crowd was a record for a British winter sports event with just under 13,000 people.

If you are a novice to this sort of event, you need to know some basic lingo. Skiing backwards, for instance, is known as "riding switch", a jump is a "kicker", an "Ollie" a small jump without a kicker and to "snowboard Goofy" means having your right-foot forward.

The ski jump built for the event, including the run-off, was 110m long. The more rotations skiers do in the air, the more points they're awarded. They can rotate up to three and a half times (a "twelve sixty") and if they can also do double backflips then they're really onto a crowd pleaser. The riders often grab their skis in various places during a jump to make the trick more difficult. Judges score on a slick landing as well as the stunt itself.

As well as the central activity area, there were Alpine themed indoor bars, a ski village, a winter sports retail area and three live music stages. For a small venue like this having so many music stages seemed somewhat unnecessary. One big full tent rather than three small half-empty ones would have been much better.

For the non-skiers there was other fun to be had with the reverse bungee where festival-goers were put in a ball and shot upwards into the air. Elsewhere there were the usual burger and Mexican food vans - at the usual excessive prices - that are found at any festival. Feeling the chill I headed over to the Winter Warmer van for a mulled wine priced at a whopping £4.20.

In terms of music the event featured some big names, including Orbital for the opening night and a DJ set from Calvin Harris on Saturday. On Sunday night, Friendly Fires played an explosive concert with a super cool light show. The crowd went mad dancing to the headline act, creating a great atmosphere for what turned out to be the highlight of the evening. Other bands also played great gigs, including Où Est Le Swimming Pool, who opened their set with the comment “this is weird, but nice” - possibly referring to the half-empty venue.

Some clever people saved themselves the £35 cost of a day pass by giving the festival the cold shoulder and checking out the ramp action from the roof terrace of The Duchess pub across the street.