The bi-annual Landsmót horse festival and tournament will take place in Vindheimamelar in Skagafjördur, north Iceland, from June 26 to July 3 this summer; the pre-sale of tickets, which ended on Sunday, went well.

From an earlier horse tournament. Photo by Páll Stefánsson.

“The pre-sale exceeded our brightest hopes,” Landsmót managing director Haraldur Örn Gunnarsson told Morgunbladid. More tickets have been sold than last summer and only a small portion of tickets are sold in advance.

The horse festival was originally supposed to take place last summer but was postponed due to the resilient horse flu which affected almost the entire Icelandic horse stock.

Those who had already bought tickets were offered to use them this year instead and 1,000 guests decided to do so.

The festival’s delay means it will be held in the same year as the World Championship for the Icelandic Horse, which will take place in Austria in August.

Gunnarsson therefore expects fewer visitors to this year’s Landsmót than usual, although people were generally understanding of the situation that arose because of the horse flu, he said.