Culture Night is a group effort — thank you and see you next year!

Extensive preparation

Months of preparation go into a massive festival like this, and an estimated 150 Reykjavík City employees are involved in planning and organizing Culture Night. This work is carried out in close cooperation with many partners, and preparation meetings and discussions with emergency responders like police and the fire department begin as early as January, along with partners like Strætó Public Transport, electric scooter rental companies, tourism representatives, city operators and many others.

Ongoing festival review

After the festival ends, everything is reviewed and changes are made to improve response and planning when needed. Early summer brings full-scale collaboration between the City and the many event organizers who make the festival so unique. Applications to Landsbankinn's event fund are processed and grants are awarded to those who want to host events during the festival. As the date approaches, safety issues, street closures, parking, maintenance, flag displays, bike racks, restroom facilities, electric scooter parking, promotional matters and much more are carefully reviewed. This popular participatory festival is a true collaboration between the public, institutions, businesses, and the City.

Police used bicycles, among other methods, to travel around the festival area.

Street closures and monitoring

Preparation of the Culture Night festival area in the city center begins at noon Thursday. On the day itself, the festival area is closed to vehicle traffic from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. to ensure the safety of pedestrians. For the Reykjavík Marathon, equipment must be set up and streets closed to clear the way for runners. As soon as the marathon ends, cleanup after the race begins.

We had a total of 12 manned closures and 63 unmanned closures. This time's closures included the following:

• 20 vehicles and about 400 meters of street closure equipment
• 57 directional signs
• 150-200 cones
• 150 traffic signs
• 100 accordion gates

Clean city

An important part of the festival is ensuring the city center stays clean during Culture Night. A dedicated group of Reykjavík City maintenance staff handles trash collection and emptying trash bins quickly and safely, working around the clock before and after the festival.

Harpa hosted a spectacular and well-attended program.

Stay Smart on Culture Night

During Culture Night, organizers always strive to ensure the festival runs smoothly.

Reykjavík City runs a campaign called Stay Smart that sends positive messages to youth and their families about socializing and healthy lifestyles.

Many young people attend Culture Night every year. A priority is making after-school program staff and prevention workers visible in the city center to talk with young people or provide assistance when needed. Further improvements were made this year, with more than double the number of staff on duty in the city center for this purpose compared to previous years. From the afternoon until the festival ended, and in some cases considerably longer, 69 employees from Reykjavík City and neighboring municipalities were on hand to provide youth with assistance and advice when needed.

A total of 56 youth center employees worked during Culture Night — 28 from Reykjavík City and 28 from other municipalities: Hafnarfjörður, Kópavogur, Mosfellsbær, Seltjarnarnes, Árborg, Reykjanesbær and Akranes. The work involves foot patrols with police, being stationed at shelters and on-site across a total of 10 teams. Additionally, 13 employees from welfare service centers worked in foot patrols and at shelters. Cooperation with police in the capital area went extremely well.

Visits to Reykjavík City website

The Culture Night 2025 website received 146,386 visits and pages were viewed 242,431 times. Of those, visits to the English version of the Culture Night website totaled 25,367 and pages were viewed 40,030 times.