Reykjavík Grapevine - okt. 2021, Síða 12

The Unheard Festival
The pandemic has silenced Iceland Airwaves for
the second year running, leading to claims that the
government isn't listening to live music
Words: John Pearson Photos: Art Bicnick
In the first week of November,
Reykjavík will be a lot quieter than
it should be. Iceland Airwaves—
arguably the nation’s highest-
profile music festival—has again
become a COVID casualty after
promoter Sena Live declared the
event impossible under current
pandemic restrictions
The cultural significance of
this annual celebration of Icelan-
dic music is undeniable. “Every-
thing in the Icelandic music indus-
try centres around Airwaves,” says
Ísleifur !órhallsson, the festival’s
director. “All the new bands—and
the established acts—have it in
their calendar as the main event
of the year.
“If you have new material you'll
release it just before the festival,
and you'll use your stage slot to
premiere your new act. The eyes of
the world are on Airwaves; it is the
annual chance for Icelandic artists
to show themselves on the global
stage.”
The financial impact of Air-
waves is also profound. In addi-
tion to ticket sales for the concerts
themselves, the event provides
brisk business for the venues, sup-
pliers and staff that make it hap-
pen. And then there’s the cash
injection administered to the Ice-
landic tourist industry. In a nor-
mal November Reykjavík’s hotels,
bars and restaurants teem with
attendees of Airwaves, all deter-
mined to spend money at an oth-
erwise quiet time of year.
“Airwaves creates income to
the economy of around one billion
Icelandic krónur,” Ísleifur points
out. “And then there are the side
effects of around 5000 people fly-
ing to Iceland, talking on social
media about how amazing it is,
then going back and saying, ‘I've
never been to a festival like this.
Reykjavík is awesome and Iceland
is incredible!’”
A year is a long time in a
pandemic
Ísleifur has no doubt that cancel-
ling the festival in 2020, although
a bitter pill to swallow at the time,
was the correct course of action.
“The only thing to do in the
beginning—before vaccines, and
when we knew less about the vi-
rus—was to shut things down,”
he says. “Everybody understood
and respected the rules, and we
were all working towards a com-
mon goal. And the government
did a good job, particularly in sup-
porting struggling businesses and
individuals.”
But Ísleifur draws a distinc-
tion between Iceland’s pandemic
situation in 2020 and the state of
affairs this year, as Airwaves ap-
proached. The success of Iceland’s
vaccination program presented an
opportunity to move on from last
year’s tight restrictions on public
gatherings. And the experiences
of concert and festival organis-
ers elsewhere in the world have
provided case studies to inform
pandemic policy, and operational
blueprints which could be fol-
lowed.
However, three months out
from the festival it was clear that
Iceland’s gathering bans were not
going anywhere. With only 200
people allowed to stand in a ven-
ue—and higher audience num-
bers constrained by measures like
numbered seating, with every-
body facing front—it became clear
that it was going to be impossible
to produce an event that would be
recognisable as Airwaves.
Sit down and shut up
So Ísleifur assembled some al-
lies—such as Iceland Music, the
body responsible for promoting
the export of Icelandic music—
and in August they began to lobby
the government.
“We were part of this letter that
went to four ministers,” recalls
Sigtryggur Baldursson, managing
director of Iceland Music, “along
with Sena and the music societies
in Iceland, asking the government
to seriously consider speed testing
and vaccination proof as a way to
make bigger events possible.
“They took it very well, and
wanted to ‘give it a serious look’
as they put it. But they came back
with a proposal that still required
numbered seats and that sort of
stuff. That's really what pulled it
for Airwaves.”
Of course, Airwaves is far from
the only Icelandic event to suffer
cancellation at the hands of the
pandemic. !jó"hátí" in the West-
man Islands was pulled in July
as a result of the gathering ban,
around the same time as Reykja-
vík Pride was forced to abandon its
usual parade. But these were deci-
sions taken in midsummer, when
the more worrying COVID-19 situ-
ation left less scope for creative
approaches to planning public
events.
Other music festivals—such as
Reykjavík’s Extreme Chill, which
was forced to cancel in 2020—are
going ahead this year. However
Extreme Chill curates a very par-
ticular vibe for its events, featur-
ing small venues like Húrra and
seated venues like Harpa’s Kal-
dalón, which work more easily
within the pandemic restrictions.
The problem is in staging large-
scale shows where punters stand,
drink beer, jump up and down and
breathe all over each other; in oth-
er words, rock ‘n’ roll.
Too little, too late
Given the apparent importance
of Airwaves to the cultural and
financial health of the nation, it
might be expected that the gov-
ernment would be eager to help
avert its cancellation. But Sigtryg-
gur wasn’t too shocked by their
conservative response, which
delivered insufficient change too
late in the day to save this year’s
Airwaves.
“It didn't come as a surprise to
me, or I think anyone else in the
game,” he says. “They were well
within character; their reaction
was very cautious.”
Nearly 90% of Icelanders over
the age of 12 are now vaccinated,
and festival organisers are able to
deploy testing, mask use, proof of
COVID-19 status and other con-
tagion management measures in
their plans. So what stood in the
way of a more pragmatic, collab-
orative approach from the govern-
ment? Ísleifur has some ideas.
“You would hope that maybe
an upcoming election would open
up the debate. What it actually
seemed to do was close down the
debate,” he says. “It looks like peo-
ple in the government feel that de-
bates about restrictions are such a
hot potato, they’re better off say-
ing absolutely nothing.
“But of course, at this point
they have to have opinions on how
to move forward. It is a political
decision. But they were afraid
to speak their minds, which is a
shame because we elected them to
run the country.”
Ísleifur points out that the in-
tention was never to make Air-
waves a special case; overly re-
strictive rules are a problem for
the whole Icelandic event industry,
and an across-the-board solution
is required. He hopes that minds
in parliament will be able to focus
on the matter once the election is
out of the way.
“We need to address the big
picture. For this year Airwaves is
gone, and we have to move on. But
it's really about ‘how did that hap-
pen? And how can we make sure it
doesn't happen again?’”
The Grapevine’s approaches to the
Minister of Education, Science and
Culture for comment remained un-
answered at time of going to press.
Culture
“For this year Airwaves
is gone, and we have
to move on. But how
can we make sure
this doesn't happen
again?”
12The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 10— 2021
Iceland Airwaves Festival Director Ísleifur !órhallsson