Chronicling Gaukurinn’s convoluted 2025
It was the first week of 2025 when rumours began to rampage through town about Gaukurinn. The perennial bar and music venue on the corner of Tryggvagata and Naustin has been a cornerstone of the Reykjavík scene for over 40 years. It’s seen multiple names, owners, and positions within the scene throughout its tenure. But at the beginning of this year, our 2024 “Best Bar for Live Music” began a new chapter when its long-standing brand as a haven for Reykjavík’s LGBTQ+ community capitulated to a seedier atmosphere, instigated by the new Fever Nightclub.
These days, it is not a rare story for a music venue to be struggling financially. While people still try, the rate at which venues go bust is increasing, which is an ongoing issue we and other outlets have been futilely covering for years. This was the case at Gaukurinn, as former general manager Hrafnar (Raven) tells me. “The regular days at Gaukurinn were a heavy burden,” he explains, despite their “quite successful” weekend events.
To mitigate this lull, the owners considered many options. Some suggested earlier openings, operating a coffeehouse during the day, or changing the types of events hosted there. As they explored these potential ways to keep doors open, a representative of Fever Nightclub approached. The Gaukurinn team reached an agreement with them: on weekend nights, if Gaukurinn didn’t have a previously set event, the space would transform into Fever Nightclub.
“I remember when we had this conversation, the two owners at the time told me [that Fever would rent out the Gaukurinn space],” Raven begins, emphasising, “I said, ‘I think it’s not gonna work. You will create revenue, 100%.’ But if I’m understanding correctly, they have a clientele that is going to collide with our current clientele, and in the long run, I don’t think this is going to work.”
Mural madness
This predicted collision occurred. As Gaukurinn began to slowly open its doors to the Fever scene, many Gaukurinn regulars grew confused and disappointed in their bar. The terms of this change were never fully explained to the masses, so many began to theorise, and rumours travelled far. “It was that lack of communication that created such chaos and such unbelievably wildfire drama,” explains Raven.
One spot where drama spread quickest was on the social media platform Reddit. “What happened to Gaukurinn?” asks one post from January 4, attaching a photo of a (terribly painted) mural, featuring a slimy cityscape scene with a well-endowed woman in a tiny dress next to a man who looks like a businessman from Grand Theft Auto, all with the word “FEVER” front and centre.
“My question is how is it that such an iconic and atmospheric place has turned, within a week, into a sleazy disco place straight out of the 2000s?” continues the Redditor. It was later learned that the mural had been painted over another mural by beloved local artist Kosmonatka. Responding to the change, which Kosmonatka first saw when the Grapevine reached out for a comment, she said, “My mural was clearly representing queerness and I can see that the focus is very different now.”
“As somebody heavily involved in the venue, these changes occurred basically overnight with no consult [sic] to any employees,” reads a reply to the post. “Pride murals were painted over to be replaced with that nonsense.”
When these threads focussed on the Fever crowd, some asserted serious allegations against those running the nightclub, listing money laundering, serving underage girls and stating that decor changes were the result of the new proprietor being, “coked out of his mind while destroying a beautiful time capsule of Icelandic history.”
As this new crowd used the space, Gaukurinn’s usual clientele grew frustrated, upset, and felt betrayed. Regular shows were still being held, but many moved to boycott the space, as it facilitated events for those who Gaukurinn-goers viewed as antithetical to themselves. “People were already thinking that Gaukurinn was changing,” Raven explains. “But that was not the case. Our crowd started walking away, and made Gaukurinn depend more on the Fever crowd.” Just a few weeks later, on January 22, Gamli Gaukurinn ehf. filed for bankruptcy.
Unpaid invoices
“There were very few things we could do, and the very few things that we could do, we needed permission from them. That created a lot of noise outside, because we couldn’t say much and we could do even less,” Raven tells me of this time.
As word of the bankruptcy spread, more discourse churned online. A new genre of post emerged. “Gaukurinn owes us money and is ghosting us. Again,” wrote one Irish band at the end of February 2025. During our follow-up investigation in late May, the band’s representative said that, “we contacted the law firm handling their bankruptcy case to file for settlement, but it seems we weren’t a priority and money went elsewhere.”
Although Raven officially stopped working at Gaukurinn in February, he has been contacted by many with unpaid invoices for help (“‘Til this day, yeah, ‘til this day”). “I want people to understand that this is not personal. Nobody’s stealing their money, not even us. We were left spinning because it was very abrupt.”
Among many others, the Grapevine received a short email stating that, as of February 17, all upcoming events at Gaukurinn were cancelled and that staff “were not given prior notice that such a decision would be made, and this came as a surprise.”
Furthermore, both Icelandic and international bands were booked to perform at Gaukurinn at least six months into the future. “I was supposed to play here March 19 and was getting the same kind of run around,” a musician replied to the Irish band.
“I’m coming from America, so it’s been a lot of logistics to work out and communication were lagging,” they continued. “I emailed them after they posted that they were closed until further notice for renovations and have yet to hear anything.” Luckily, venues such as LEMMY, Bird, and Iðnó took up a fair amount of slack, springing to welcome bands duped by Gaukurinn into their spaces.
A new cycle
Approximately three months after they claimed they were closed for renovation, the revamped Gaukurinn — populated by Fever clientele — posted an Instagram advert for their upcoming series of karaoke nights, a fan favourite of Gaukurinn’s previous patrons.
To add insult to injury, its first iteration would be hosted by Haffi Haff, a notorious transphobe and member of the trans-exclusionary group Samtökin 22. Immediately, the venue’s social media post got filled with disappointed guests. “So sad this transphobe was the only person left in town you could book. Nobody is going to support you. You went too far,” one disgruntled patron wrote. “No wonder the same bar that doesn’t pay the artists is also the same bar that is letting a member of a hate group perform,” read another.
Raven echoes these sentiments, stating, “People are saying, ‘Gaukurinn is no longer a safe space.’ That’s probably true.” However, he is not feeling this as painful for the queer community. Rather, he says, “I don’t think it’s a betrayal to the community because Gaukurinn was there before the community was even accepted. So my glass of beer is always half-full.”
Raven accepts this new chapter for Gaukurinn. “I do believe in the longevity of Gaukurinn because it has adapted so many times through the decades,” he says. “I don’t think it’s fair for the legacy of the venue for people to just talk shit about it. There’s a lot of history there. It’s just another cycle. Maybe next cycle, we’ll get it back.”
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