‘Torn down for hotel rooms’: Iceland’s famous music venues swallowed by tourism

Thriving music scene that gave world Björk, Sigur Rós and Ólafur Arnald under threat from Reykjavík’s popularity

“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 world – more than 1.7 million in 2022 alone – it was a thriving music scene that gave the world Björk, Sigur Rós and Ólafur Arnalds, who attracted much of the outside interest in the previously isolated Nordic country.

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