‘Bands put Iceland on the map’ Tourism forces music venues to close

Tourism forces music venues to close

- Miranda Bryant

“That was the first thing that people came here for,” said Óli Dóri, who until a few weeks ago was event organiser at the music venue at the hostel Kex, the latest of many in Reykjavík now consigned to history. “The bands in Iceland. That’s what put Iceland on the map.”

Before Iceland’s tourist boom, pulling in budget airlines and visitors from across the globe - more than 1.7 million in 2022 alone - it was a thriving music scene that gave the world Björk, Sigur Rós and Ólafur Arnalds that attracted much of the outside interest in the previously isolated Nordic country.

But despite their role in cultivating and providing a platform for Iceland’s musicians, Reykjavík’s music venues are now paying the price for the capital’s popularity as a tourist destination.

Many of the city’s smaller music venues - beloved spaces with active communities and vital training grounds for emerging artists - have closed over the years to make way for hotels.