Iceland Airwaves 2026 review: This Reykjavík music festival is truly one of one

Try as I may to describe Iceland Airwaves, I keep coming up with the same singularities. One of one. One of a kind. Once in a lifetime. But it’s true: this event is like no other music festival in the world. Whether you tend towards the big and flashy (your Glastonburys, your Coachellas), the dinky (Green Man, Houghton) or even the niche (Horst, Montreux), I can promise you that Iceland Airwaves is entirely and completely incomparable to what you have experienced before.Set across seven different venues in the overwhelmingly welcoming, laughably navigable city of Reykjavík — where literally everything is a five-minute walk apart— Airwaves takes place every November, bringing delegates from across the world to perform and enjoy emerging music throughout three days of programming. It is the most genuinely creative festival I have ever come across, the type of place where conversations actually broaden horizons instead of charting increases in drunkenness. It is also deeply egalitarian. One minute you’ll be sat listening to a talk on nature and Icelandic creativity mere metres from Björk (a regular attendee), another you’ll be partying with the on-schedule musicians at an off-schedule squat rave in downtown Reykjavík. Fríkirkjan is one of seven venues at Iceland AirwavesFlorian TrykowskiThis year had some particularly taste-shaping highlights, including underground band-of-the-moment Piss, a noise-punk four-piece from Vancouver, who moved crowds in every sense with their sexual violence-focused, performance art-leaning set. Brooklyn indie rockers Victoryland made a lasting impression the second night, feeling like the next iteration of Geese while leaning towards the preppy, earlier work of Vampire Weekend. And Knackered, one of Iceland’s foremost dance darlings, blew the roof off of Lemmy (the bar-cum-taproom-cum-club and one of the festival’s best venues) in a reliable fashion on night three.Not everything is brand new, either – many Icelandic acts play the venue year after year, or return after long gaps of absence. Mammút, the female-forward rock band who were the toast of Iceland in the mid 2000s, graced the stage at Kolaport for a masterclass of a set, showing all the new kids on the block exactly how it’s done. The crowd outside Lemmy, another venue at Iceland AirwavesCat Gundry BeckIf that all sounds relatively niche (to the average English person, at least), rest assured there are always a few big names on the lineup. The headliners this year were Shygirl, Daði Freyr (of Eurovision fame) and The Streets, performing at separate events in the famed Harpa concert hall. This made for the particularly remarkable experience of watching Mike Skinner clamber across the venue’s cushioned seats, shaking hands with punters as he went, while belting out the lyrics to Who's Got The Bag – a post-lockdown anthem about the loosening of Covid restrictions that surely mystified anyone non-English in the crowd, but was well received nonetheless.It’s this kind of inimitable experience that makes Airwaves so special. Attendees will spend half their time remarking, “Who else can possibly say that they’ve seen that?”, leaving you and your fellow festivalgoers with an odd, blood-brother-esque bond. The Streets perform in Harpa, Reykjavík’s concert hall, as part of Iceland Airwaves 2026Mummi LuNot to mention that the daytimes are spent sweating out hangovers in local sunds (bathing pools with saunas and steamrooms, a mainstay of Icelandic culture), hopping between the legendary lagoons (the correct order of preference goes Sky Lagoon, Hvammsvík, Blue Lagoon, FYI) and taking part in countryside tours where you get to observe landscapes that could make a grown man cry. It’s the kind of balance people strive to achieve at regular festivals when they promise to go to that midday yoga session before zipping up their tents – except in Reykjavík, you actually do. I cannot recommend this festival enough. It’s Mecca for true music lovers. I’d tell you to trust me and test it out just once – but the problem is that it’s impossible. Iceland Airwaves might be singular, but your love of it won’t be. You’ll invariably end up coming back for seconds. See you in 2027. With thanks to Iceland Airwaves, Inspired By Iceland, Iceland Music, Icelandair, Parliament Hotel, Icelandia and Sky Lagoon.