Sónar brings 1500 concert goers to Iceland

The Sónar Reykjavík music festival has grown from year to year and this year, 3.500 guests will be attending. Foreign guests are 1.500 this years excluding press and international artists. Björn Steinbeck, managing director of the festival says that the figures prove that Sónar Reykjavík is becoming a fixture on the international festival circuit. According to Steinbeck the cost of Sónar in Reykjavík is around 60 million Icelandic kronas. 

Sónar takes place this year between February 12th to 14th. Foreign guests were 700 in the first year that the festival took place in 2013, and were 1.000 in 2014. Steinbeck says that the aim is to get 2.000 foreign guests to the festival and that most of them so far have come from Britain, Germany, the US, the Netherlands and Spain. 

This influx of tourists obviously has a great influence on tourism to Reykjavik in February. According to Steinbeck all hotels are fully booked and he expects that Sónar festival goers will be occuping two thousand hotel nights in the city. He adds that marketing the festival abroad costs time and money. "You need to spend a lot to get 1.500 tourists to the country," he says adding that two million ISK were put towards international marketing. 

The festival is mostly financed through ticket sales and cooperation with Icelandic companies as well as having received a four million Icelandic krona grant from the City of Reykjavik. Steinbeck is also the managing director of Sónar Copenhagen and Sónar Stockholm. The Stockholm edition takes place at the same time as the one in Reykjavík, and the Copenhagen one takes place two weeks later. The turnover of all three festivals is more than two hundred million Icelandic kronas. 

Next year, Steinbeck plans to organise all three festivals on the same weekend and therefore be able to book better known artists who will play all three festivals.  He adds that the Reykjavík festival will not grow any larger in number of tickets. "We want to keep Sónar in Harpa concert hall but import bigger artists. Our clientele spans from approximately 25- 40 and they want to see big artists in smaller and more intimate concert venues than abroad. Among the biggest names playing Sónar Reykjavík this year are Skrillex, SBTRKT, Paul Kalkbrenner and Jamie XX from The XX. 

The price of a festival pass is 18,900 ISK and Steinbeck thinks that the price may go up in the future. " Ticket prices are too low in Iceland," he says adding that there's no VAT on tickets but  VAT on all equipment rental and marketing with no tax deductions. He believes concert promoters should get tax deductions like the movie industry. "We're bringing journalists in to sell Iceland. You should be able to get some deductions based on your success in reaching out to tourists. Instead of just relying on grants which are susceptible to the subjective assessments of politicians and people in government."

FM Belfast at Sónar Reykjavík 2014. Mbl.is/ Eggert Jóhannesson