Reykjavík, along with the Reykjavík Capital Area, is a true event and festival city, with over 40 annual events and festivals on its yearly calendar. Among the most striking of these are various cult ural events, where music plays a key role, along with perform-ing arts, visual arts, fashion and design, literature, films and more. Mixed events and festivals such as the Winter Lights Festival, Reykjavík Arts Festival, Gay Pride and Reykjavík Culture Night are immensely popular among the locals in Iceland, attracting up to one third of the population to participate. Sports events of various kinds have become more apparent in the event scene in Reykja vík with the annual Horse Festival being the most promi-nent newcomer.

In 2011, Reykjavík was awarded the IFEA World Festival and Event City Award. The city was given the award because of its

large number of events and festivals, compared to the small size of the city, as well as the ambition that every festival holds, the variety of the events and festivals and for attracting international artists to many of those festivals to exhibit their art.

Reykjavík’s cultural life has flourished in the past years and decades and the city is a true meeting place of different trends and influences. The cultural life is characterised by the atmosphere of a cosmopolitan city, along with Icelandic cultural unique-ness. It can be stated that it doesn’t boast historically known and renowned cultural institutions like many other western capital cit-ies. That fact however creates a valuable space to pass the cultural restraints of the past and its dividing norms and values to build a progressive and eventful future.

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NEWSLETTER WINTER 2013

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Reykjavík Festival City

Zoom Out – Iceland’s largest visual arts exhibition

The largest visual arts exhibition that has ever been held in Iceland will be opened at Reykjavik Art Museum - Kjarvalsstaðir on 2 February. The exhibition is called Zoom Out and is presented as part of the celebration of the 40th year anniversary of Kjarvals-staðir. This unusual exhibition will give visitors a rare opportunity to see the Reykjavik Art Museum’s vast collection of Icelandic art. Artworks in a variety of media will be shown in a constantly changing display over a three month period. The exhibition hall will be in state of a perpetual flux, as art handlers constantly install new works and remove others, even as visitors roam through the

gallery space. This is an opportunity to get an unedited view of Icelandic art, for everything will be brought out of storage and displayed without curatorial pre-selection. The exhibition is open until 20 May 2013.

Visitors can at the same time see the exhibition, Kjarval Complete at Kjarvalsstaðir. This show offers the opportunity to see hundreds of works by Jóhannes S. Kjarval, one of Iceland’s leading artists of the 20th century. The exhibition is hung in the manner of the salon, with pictures from floor to ceiling, in no particular order. The exhibition will bring out unexpected juxtapositions, disre-garding all themes, periods, subjects and chronology. The viewer will approach Kjarval’s work without any guidance, and look into the artist’s world on his/her own terms.

Winter WonderlandEvery year in late January, Icelanders get just a little bit tired of the winter darkness. The Christmas season – with its cookies, lights, and family gatherings – and the energy of New Year is long gone and yet there is another month of relative darkness still on the horizon. But this is the cynical point of view. In fact, winter in Iceland is a magical time because there is so much happening!

When I was young, I worked as a tour guide in the Lake Mývatn area of Northern Iceland. If you haven’t visited that region yet, I can assure you that it’s absolutely beautiful, possibly even more beauti-ful than Reykjavík. One moment I clearly remember during my time as a guide there was when a tourist asked me what happened in Ice-land during the winter. Did we Icelanders hibernate like bears until spring? And when there was so much daylight and so many visitors in summer, what could possibly be of interest during the winter?

The answer was simple: Winter is when we really wake up! That is when we pay closest attention to our culture, heritage, books, art, social life, well, almost everything – because during summer’s end-less light we try to spend a lot of time outdoors.

I have remembered this exchange over the years. When people ask me about the winter, this is the answer I still give them, saying it’s really the best time of year to visit cafes, enjoy cultural experiences, and participate in artistic events, not to mention all the outdoor win-ter activities the country has to offer, like skiing, skating, sledding, and more.

The good news for Iceland’s tourism industry is that efforts made by most players in the industry to strengthen the infrastructure during the low season (late autumn, winter and early spring) are showing clear and positive results. For example, between 2011 and 2012 there was a 60.9% increase in visitors in the month of November. As members of the industry, it is important that we tell the world that Reykjavík (and Iceland overall) is an exciting destination all year round and that the Northern lights, the unique culture, our nature and the plentiful geothermal water are even better with some snow.

Hopefully we can stop referring to the “low season” soon and simply call it our winter wonderland!

Dóra MagnúsdóttirMarketing Manager, Visit Reykjavík

Upcoming creative events in Harpa With over 1.7 million guests in the first year and a half after its opening, and over 1000 events, Harpa has exceeded all expectations for a flourishing concert and conference hall in Reykjavík.

The renowned Sónar festival takes place in Harpa for the first time in February. The festival has regularly travelled beyond Spain’s frontiers since 2002, with more than 30 events in different places around the world, highlighting the most interesting home-grown talent and the scene in the city where it takes place.

Harpa continues with two exciting concert series in 2013: The Undercurrent (Undiraldan) concert series showcases artists and bands from the Icelandic underground and gives new bands the opportunity to perform. On the classical side, Harpa continues with its stunning Meisterpianist series with many renowned talents performing.

The fourth Reykjavík Fashion Festival, RFF, takes place in March. The festival showcases the flourishing creative industries in Iceland with eight principal designers presenting fashion shows.

The Iceland Symphony Orchestra continues to surprise audiences with its brave choices in repertoire. The Tectonics festival, held to great acclaim last year, takes place in March under the artistic direc-tion of Ilan Volkov. In celebration of the 10th year of EVE Online, the world-famous virtual universe developed by Reykjavík’s CCP Games, the Symphony Orchestra will recreate the harmonic music of EVE Online to start off the festivities for this year’s EVE Fanfest in April 2013.

More information at www.harpa.is

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Inside the VolcanoFor the second year, visitors to Iceland have the opportunity to see what a volcano looks like from the inside. The unique ‘Inside the Volcano’ tour – which was one of 2012’s most popular new tourist attractions – has been confirmed for 2013, with tours starting on 15 May. The tour will be available until 10 September 2013.

The tour takes visitors to the dormant Thrihnukagigur Volcano, about 30 km from Reykjavik. It’s the only place on earth where a huge volcanic magma chamber is accessible and currently safe to explore, giving tour guests an exclusive chance to see what the

Oscar winners Michael Douglas (Wall Street) and Christoph Waltz (Inglorious Bastards) are coming to Reykjavik in May to take on the roles of Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in a major movie production named “Reykja-vík”. The movie is a dramati-zation of the 1986 Reykjavík summit between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, held in Reykja vík’s historic Hofdi House

in 1985. The summit put Reykjavík on the global map for good and served as the beginning of the end of the Cold War.

Now playing in your local movie theatres, Tom Cruise blasts off to outer space in the blockbuster film “Oblivion”. Also this year, Oscar-winner Russell Crowe (“Gladiator”) saves mankind as Noah and Ben Stiller discovers “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.” All three of these movies were shot on loca-tion in Iceland. Interestingly, both Stiller and Crowe routinely tweeted about the fantastic time they enjoyed in Reykjavík. While Tom Cruise did not tweet much, he and Katie Holmes however ate at Reykjavík’s Sushi Samba, now world famous for hosting the couple’s last dinner together.

But Reykjavík is more than a playground for Hollywood roy-alty. This year’s festival calendar is bursting with exciting celebrations. This summer, we have a Scandinavian circus coming to town. The Cultural Night Concert, Iceland’s big-gest outdoor concert of the year, celebrates its 10th anniver-sary. And our annual Gay Pride will add much colour to the festival scene. A newcomer to Reykjavík’s festival circuit is our intimate Bacon Festival in August. The festival has surged from 1,500 guests in 2011 to 15,000 guests in 2012. So we expect even tastier things for 2013’s Bacon Festival. All these events are just the tip of the iceberg!

The city of Reykjavík offers so much to so many. This is why I love Reykjavík. And this is why I hope to soon say to all of you, “Welcome to Reykjavík.”

Einar Þór Bárðarson, Director of Visit Reykjavík

Reykjavík, the Superstar

Meet in Reykjavík takes offA number of tenders for large events in Reykjavík have been concluded in the first operating year of the Meet in Reykjavík – Reykjavík Convention Bureau in cooperation with various business associates. Reykjavik has been selected by the European Gymnas-tic Association to host the TeamGym Gymnastic Championship in 2014. This will be the first time Iceland has hosted the TeamGym Championship but Iceland is the current women´s and girl´s Euro-pean Champion in the sport.

Meet in Reykjavík, along with other relevant parties, applied to host the the World Outgames festival organised by GLISA (Gay and Lesbian International Sports Association) in 2017. Initially 18 cities showed interest but now the choice is between Reykjavík and Miami. It´s expected that between 10,000 to 12,000 will attend the sporting event and 1,500 – 2,000 will attend the Human Rights con-ference that will be held as well.

Meet in Iceland, along with Iceland Music Export and Iceland Travel, have submitted a bid to host WOMEX, one of the world´s best-known folk music expositions, for the years 2015, 2016 and 2017. They have also bid to host the 2014 Society of American Travel Writers convention, which will take place in October 2014 and involve around 300 travel participants.

Meet in Reykjavík has formally joined the Vox Naturae team in the development of the Ice Circle project, an international project supported by a range of major international institutions including the World Bank, Global Water Partnership, the UNESCO Centre on Water Law, Policy and Science along with the Icelandic Mete-orological Office and the Icelandic Soil Conservation Service. The Ice Circle will be a forum for conferences and meetings, addressing the world´s response to the economic, social and environmental consequences of global warming.

For further information go to www.meetinreykjavik.is

inside of a volcano looks like. The tour was hugely popular with travellers and received great reviews, for instance at TripAdvisor.

The size and scope of the volcanic chamber is enormous. The vault is bottle-shaped and its ground space is equivalent to almost three full-size basketball courts. The distance from top to bottom is about 120m/400ft – an opening that could easily fit the Statue of Liberty.

The current tour is one of a kind, as participants descend through the top crater, all the way down to the bottom of the magma cham-ber, accompanied by experienced and specially trained guides. Run in small groups, the tour takes approximately 5–6 hours, including up to one hour inside the volcano.

For more information: www.insidethevolcano.com

The City of Reykjavík is the capital and largest city of Iceland. It is located at latitude 64°08`N in south-western Iceland, on the southern shore of Faxaflói Bay.

Population: The Reykjavík Capital Area has a total popu-lation of about 200,000, which is about two-thirds of Ice-land’s population of 320,000 people.

History: Iceland was settled by Norwegian and Celtic immi-grants during the late 9th and 10th centuries. According to the medieval Book of Settlement, Ingolfur Arnarson – first settler of Iceland – built his farm on the peninsula where Reykja-vík stands today. The place was named Reykjavík (meaning Smoky/Steamy Bay) because of the columns of steam that rose from hot springs.

Flight time: Reykjavík is probably closer than you think. Flight time is only 2-4 hours from Europe and 5-6 hours from east coast USA and Canada. It is possible to get to Iceland by sea as well.

Weather: Despite its northerly location, Reykjavík has a relatively mild climate due to the warm Gulf Stream: cool in summer (average around 12°C) and fairly mild in win-ter (average around 0°C). However, Icelandic weather is notoriously fickle and visitors should be prepared for the unexpected.

Language: The national language is Icelandic, a language of Germanic origin, related to the Scandinavian languages. English is, however, widely spoken.

Need more information? Check out our website www.visitreykjavik.is or send us an e-mail:info@visitreykjavik.is

A few facts and figures

Einar Þór Bárðarson Director of Visit Reykjavík einar@visitreykjavik.is

Dóra Magnúsdóttir Marketing Manager dora@visitreykjavik.is

Jón Trausti Sæmundsson Project Manager of Marketing & Tourism jon@visitreykjavik.is

Karen María Jónsdóttir Project Manager of Events karen@visitreykjavik.is

Guðmundur Birgir Halldórsson Project Manager of Events gummi@visitreykjavik.is

Drífa Magnúsdóttir Project Manager of Tourist Information Centre drifa@visitreykjavik.is

Bryndís Pjetursdóttir Project Manager of web and social media bryndis@visitreykjavik.is

Auður Halldórsdóttir Information Officer audur@visitreykjavik.is

Heiðrún Hákonardóttir Office Manager Contact: heidrun@visitreykjavik.is

Julio Cesar Verdugo Information Officer julio@visitreykjavik.is

Visit Reykjavík staff

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Filming in Reykjavík Hollywood heavyweights are increasingly combining Iceland’s unique landscape and Reykjavík’s colourful city life in their story-lines.

Last summer the comedy “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” used Iceland as a backdrop for its movie. Directed by Ben Stiller and starring Sean Penn, the story features a daydreaming photographer caught up in an amazing adventure in and around Reykja vík. Other films shot in Iceland last year were “Oblivion” directed by Joseph Kosinski and starring Tom Cruise, “Noah” directed by Darren Aronofsky and starring Russel Crowe and “Prometheus” starring Noomi Rapace and Michael Fassbender.

DreamWorks Studios is currently producing the WikiLeaks drama “The Fifth Estate”. The film is about the disputed website set up by Julian Assange and Daniel Domscheit-Berg. It follows the early days of Wikileaks to its abrupt end after a series of controversial and history changing info leaks.

Later this year Mike Newell will begin production of the histori-cal drama “Reykjavik”. Christoph Waltz plays the former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and Michael Douglas takes on the role of former US president Ronald Reagan. The movie is set against the backdrop of the historic 1986 summit between the two world leaders, who are believed to have been the architects of the ending of the Cold War.

Over the past few decades, Iceland has built an extensive film industry with professional know-how and experience. Icelandic production companies have taken part in many large-scale film and commercial projects, combining their filmmaking experience with in-depth knowledge of Iceland’s unique landscape.