News

The Reykjavik Culture, Sports and Leisure Council has chosen six Reykjavik city festivals that will receive a partnership agreement with the city for the next three years. The festivals which were chosen are: Reykjavik Pride, Design March, Iceland Airwaves, RIFF - Reykjavik International Film Festival, Dark Music Days and Reykjavik Dance Festival.

The role of a city festival is to promote culture and social life in Reykjavik, but they must also fulfill a number of other conditions, such as being accessible and visible, having an international connection and meeting professional and quality requirements.

Imagine Peace Tower in Viðey Island will be illuminated for the 13th time in a beautiful ceremony on Wednesday October 9th at 8 pm. The programme starts at 5:45 pm and lasts until 9:00 pm.

Ferry ride and City Bus

Yoko Ono invites everyone to sail free of charge to Viðey Island for the ceremony of the Illumination of IMAGINE PEACE TOWER with the Viðey Island Ferry. 

• 5:15 – 7:00 pm: The City Bus runs from Hlemmur bus terminal to Skarfabakki Pier every 20 minutes. The City Bus is free of charge from Hlemmur bus terminal to Skarfabakki Pier and back again. 
• 5:30- 7:30 pm: The ferry sails from Skarfabakki Pier to Viðey Island.
• 20:30 pm: After the ceremony the ferry sails from Viðey Island to Skarfabakki Pier until the island has been evacuated. The City Bus will run to Hlemmur bus terminal from Skarfabakki Pier until the last ferry has arrived.

Programme

For people who come early, there will be a choice of various events.

• 5:45 pm: Guided tours on the history of Viðey and the works of Richard Serra.  
• 6:00 pm: History walk
• 6:45 pm: Guided tours on the history of Viðey and the works of Richard Serra. 
• 7:00 pm: History walk 

Program at Peacetower

• 7:00 pm: Music performance  by Salóme Katrin at Viðeyjarnausti
• 7:45 pm: Hamrahlíðar choir performs
• 8:00 pm: Speach
• 8:10 pm: Imagine Tower lit
• 8.30 pm: Music performance by Teitur Magnússon

Refreshments can be bought in Viðeyjarnaust and Viðeyjarstofa. 

ATTENTION – WE ENCOURAGE EVERYONE TO DRESS ACCORDING TO WEATHER. For further information visit www.videy.com

IMAGINE PEACE TOWER

IMAGINE PEACE TOWER is an outdoor work of art conceived by Yoko Ono, located at Viðey Island, honouring the memory of her late husband, John Lennon. Each year, on his birthday, IMAGINE PEACE TOWER is re-lit in a ceremony and beams with a stream of lights high into the sky until it is turned off on the day he died, 8 December. The art piece is a symbol for John and Yoko’s fight for peace. IMAGINE PEACE TOWER has the shape of a wishing well where the words “Imagine Peace” are written in 24 languages all around the art piece, and refer to the song “Imagine” by John Lennon.

RIFF - Reykjavík International Film Festival - held this year from the 26th of Sept to 6th of Oct  - is one of the biggest and most diverse cultural events in Iceland. RIFF is an independent non-profit organization. 

For eleven days every fall since 2004 Icelandic people and tourists alike go to the cinema to enjoy the best and freshest of international filmmaking. Guests can also meet and chat with directors about their works, attend panels and workshops, concerts and exhibitions, and even watch interesting films under even more interesting conditions, for instance in a swimming pool or a barn.

Over the last few years, RIFF has screened approximately 100 feature films from roughly 40 countries annually. For your convenience, they are arranged in a number of different categories that have solidified over time.

For more information please visit the Reykjavík International Film Festival website.

LÓKAL performing arts festival is being held in Reykjavík from the 14th until the 22nd of September. Don't miss out in seeing this performing arts platform that produces and introduces contemporary performance to audiences in Iceland and connects local performance practitioners with fellow artists and presenters from abroad. 

For more information about the festival and it's program check out their website

The 10th anniversary of the Icelandic experimental music festival Extreme Chill starts today September 12th  and lasts until September 15th here in Reykjavík.

This year, the Extreme Chill festival will be larger than ever before, taking place in four main venues in central Reykjavík. 

The festival pass cost a meager 9.900 ISK, with a limited amount of festival passes being available this year. 

Extreme Chill is a four-day music festival where local and foreign musicians of all ages and with diverse backgrounds come together to create music under the inspiration of Icelandic nature. Extreme Chill will be a mystifying journey around electric Reykjavík.

For more information visit their website www.extremechill.org 

The annual Reykjavík Jazz Festival takes place between 4th and the 8th of September this year. 

The festival is an increasingly prestigious event on the international jazz scene. It has been running since 1990 which makes it the second oldest music festival in Iceland. Therefore this year it will be held for the 30th time. 

You'll find performances in a variety of styles, from contemporary jazz and the avant-garde to Latin jazz, gospel and big bands. The festival features many acclaimed international Jazz players as well as Iceland’s leading Jazz musicians. Against a backdrop of imposing mountains this small, clean coastal town is an unusual and inspiring location for live jazz.

For more information please visit the Reykjavik Jazz Festival website.

For tickets click here 

Although Reykjavík is like a village in a city or city in a village, we have an impressive number of quality restaurants, staffed with award winning chefs that create both imaginative and delicious cuisine! Therefore many of our restaurants are getting great coverage and reviews on international platforms, and are we here at Visit Reykjavík always proud to share the news. 

An article on Eater.com was published last week where they talk about Reykjavík as a "burgeoning culinary capital".  Click here to read the full article 

Reykjavík’s 24th annual Culture Night will be held on Saturday 24th of August. Events and performances, large and small, will fill the streets and squares of the town centre, alleys, gardens, galleries, shops, cultural institutes and private homes.

The event is both created and enjoyed by city residents and takes place all across central Reykjavik, with celebrations in the streets and squares, in museums, businesses and residential gardens! The event’s slogan ‘come on in!’ is a reference to good old-fashioned customs of Icelandic hospitality. Reykjavik Culture Night marks the start of the city’s cultural year, when museums and theatres and other cultural institutions launch their annual programme of events. 

The main objective of Culture Night is to encourage participants to deliver a diverse and rich offering of cultural events with a taste of something for everyone and a few surprises too!

With about 100.000 guests Culture Night is the biggest and most popular festival in Iceland. The programme offers a cross-section of all things culture, with a host of events ranging from musical performances to exhibitions of art and architecture, all delivered by the city’s budding talent.

All festival events are offered free of charge, meaning everyone can take part and make the most of it together with their nearest and dearest.  Reykjavik Culture Night is organised and produced by the events team at Reykjavík Cultural Office, in collaboration with other city departments, organisations, artists, societies and countless others.

We promise an exciting, entertaining, inspiring and energizing festival for all who attend!

For more information please visit the Reykjavík Culture Night website.

Reykjavík Pride is celebrating 20 years of LGBTQ marching this year! The celebration starts tomorrow the 8th of August and ends with a bang with the Pride walk down Skólavörðurstígur on the 17th. This colourful event brings tens of thousands of people into the city centre every year to show solidarity and to have fun with the LGBTQ community in Reykjavik. People of all genders, friends, relatives, and a fast growing number of tourists, all come together to celebrate and support universal human rights.

Reykjavik Pride has been celebrated annually since 1999, so this year we embrace the 20th year in a row! In 99‘, about fifteen hundred guests came together in Ingólfstorg on Saturday, 26 June, and it was promptly decided to hold a similar celebration here in the city every year. A year later, when the first Pride parade was underway, twelve thousand people attended.  . Our cozy little pride, has blossomed and evolved into a colourful ten day celebration that attracts over 100 thousand guests from all over the world. Reykjavík Pride is one of the biggest little Pride Parades in the world.

Reykjavik Pride is an important event for the LGBTQ community in Iceland. The festival promotes visibility and courage and provides people with a platform to manifest their pride. The celebrations do not only mark a successful stage in the LGBTQ struggle; Reykjavik Pride is also one of the most vibrant and popular events on Reykjavík’s cultural calendar. By participating in the event in such large numbers, the Icelandic people regularly show valuable support, recognition and respect for the cause.

Here you can see the full programme

For more information about the festival please visit the Reykjavik Pride website.
 

The Innipúkinn annual music festival will be held in Reykjavík for the 18th time over this Merchants’ Weekend (Verslunarmannahelgi). Starting tomorrow afternoon and goes on until deep in the night on Sunday. The venues this year will be  Bryggjan, Messinn Grandi and the area around them. 

Merchant’s Weekend is known for its many outdoor festivals. There is at least one in every part of the country. City-slickers tend to head out of the capital, heading for a weekend of outdoor festivities up in the country side. However, Innipúkinn music festival is held both inside, and in Reykjavík. It's the indoor/city option for those not going for the happy-camper spirit during this Icelandic party weekend.

This years line up: 
Between Mountains
Blóðmör
Dj Flugvél & geimskip
Frikki Dór
Hildur
Joey Christ
Jónas Sig
Kælan mikla
Matthildur
Moses Hightower
Sprite Zero Klan
Sturla Atlas
Una Schram
Valdimar
Vök

Click here for tickets 

Go to Innipúkin's Facebook page for more information 

The Chef's Pencil just released a study on the rise of veganism in Iceland with Iceland ranking 1st worldwide, ahead of the United Kingdom and Australia for veganism popularity based on Google Trends data.

They used Google Trends which is a a great source of big data, to analyze the search interest level for veganism across the world. Searches in the Veganism category, which comprises vegan-related searches made in any language e.g. “vegan uppskriftir” (translates to vegan recipes), “vegan”, “vegan fæði” (translates to vegan food), are at an all-time high in Iceland.

In the past 5 years Reykjavík has expanded it's vegan scene immensely, with almost every restaurant in town offering a vegan option. Supermarkets like Krónan, Hagkaup. Bónus and Nettó, all now have a great selection of vegan products and produce. You can also download the Vegan App, if you want all the information neccessary for a vegan visiting the city or the country.

So it's safe to say that Reykjavík is a place for everyone, vegans and all food lovers alike!  

Click here for a link with the full study, which contains additional charts and interviews with local vegan business owners. 

The Secret Solstice festival is being held here in Reykjavík this weekend, 21.-23. of June. This is the biggest music festival held in Iceland with huge names in music performing every year. 

The festival takes place over the summer solstice during the brightest part of the year. 100-150 acts perform at the festival each year from a variety of genres, both domestic and foreign, established and up-and-coming. 

This weekend you can see The Black Eyed peas, Robert Plant, Jonas Blue, The Sugahill Gang, Hatari and Patti Smith to name a few. You can purchase a weekend pass, day pass, youth pass and a VIP pass and there are also side events that are sold separately. 

So if you are in town do not miss this unique oppurtunity to enjoy incredible artists under the beautiful midnight sun in Reykjavík! 

For further information about prices and schedules go to their website