A debate has long been raging in Reykjavík about the diminishing number of small and medium sized concert venues. With rising real estate prices and a booming tourism industry hungry for space, it is becoming harder to maintain the city’s vibrant music scene. It’s not a new phenomenon, per se.
Lamenting the loss of beloved venues is a cyclical passtime of music lovers in Reykjavík. The latest victim in this reincarnation of the onslaught against live music is the popular venue KEX. “Just yesterday (August 14), we were hosting a concert here at Prikið with a young and upcoming Icelandic band.
Great atmosphere, amazing party and a perfect band for us,” says Geoffrey Þór Huntington-Williams (Geoff), owner and proprietor of music venue Prikið on Bankastræti in the heart of downtown Reykjavík. “Then at little before midnight the police came knocking. We have a permit to 01:00, but they had received a noise complaint from the tourists staying in the Center Hotel luxury apartments next door.
We are in the part of Reykjavík where there is music and partying, which creates the magic of Reykjavík.” After interrupting a concert at a bar that has been operating at the same location since the 1950s to check its permits, the police left and the music was allowed to continue. But that is not the case everywhere in the downtown core.
In the past 20 years, the city has lost many of its small and medium sized concert venues, with the tourism-driven gentrification of.