The story of the Meat Soup Festival

The spark for a festival for the whole town

Our festival was originally called Hausthátíð, the autumn festival, and was first held in Hvolsvöllur in 2006. The idea came from Árný, who saw how good it would be to create one shared festival for our municipality. She picked up the phone and spoke to Ísólfur Gylfi Pálmason, then head of the local council. He liked the idea, and the ball started rolling.

Árný soon gathered a group of people ready to take part. Along with her, the original team was Siggi Jóns, Guðrún Ósk Birgisdóttir, Þorsteinn Jónsson, Úlfar Albertsson, Jónína Kristjánsdóttir, Hlynur Theodórsson and Ásta Halla. More joined quickly, because the community immediately wanted to lend a hand.

A market and homemade soup at the Saga Centre

In the first year the organisers were given space in one end of Sögusetrið, the Saga Centre, which was then used to store all sorts of goods. The group rolled up their sleeves, used what they could and set up market stalls. People came to sell their wares and it turned into a lively market.

Farm machinery and tools were on display and farm animals delighted the guests. There were farming contests, performances and all kinds of happenings. The meat soup was of course cooked from scratch on the spot; the vegetables came from Hallgeirsey and the meat from SS.

The first festival lasted a single day and the aim was to keep costs to a minimum. It ended up costing very little, because the whole thing rested on hard work, volunteering and the goodwill of the townspeople. The day went well and the festival began to grow in the years that followed.

Bigger in scale, and the birth of the Soup Stroll

Around the third year the festival moved into miðbragginn, the middle hangar. Once again space had to be cleared and made ready for guests. A stage was built, stalls were put up and seating was arranged. The entertainment grew with it; Ingibjörg Erlings ran the singing performances, among many other additions.

A few years after the festival started, Gunnhildur Jónsdóttir brought up the idea that people could serve soup in their own homes. She made it happen, and the result was the Soup Stroll, today one of the cornerstones of the festival.

Things also changed for the better when Þuríður Aradóttir, the municipality marketing and communications officer, joined the effort. She came into the planning around the third year and gradually took on more of the organising. That was very welcome, as until then the preparation had rested almost entirely on volunteers.

Colour coded streets and the spirit of the town

This was also when the well known colour coded streets appeared. Residents put in a great deal of work and stretched their imagination to the limit decorating houses and gardens. That created the warm, good natured atmosphere that still defines the festival today.

The festival has kept growing ever since those first years. Its scale today is something else entirely and the cost must be higher, but the aim is always to offer a varied programme that is mostly free for our guests.

It is fitting to end with Árný's own words, which sum up what the Meat Soup Festival is really about: