Lava Show: Reykjavík or Vík?

Short answer: it’s the same show in two places. Real lava, melted down and poured into a room in front of you, for from €48 an adult. See it in Vík if you are driving the South Coast anyway, because it fills the hour you’d otherwise spend in a café waiting for the rain to stop. See it in Reykjavík if you are staying in town and want one indoor thing that isn’t a museum.

What the show actually is

The company takes basalt from the 1918 Katla eruption, heats it in a furnace until it runs, and pours it down a chute into a showroom full of people sitting a few metres away. You watch it glow, crust over, crack and hiss. A host talks you through it, there’s a short film about Icelandic volcanoes first, and questions at the end. You wear the safety goggles they hand out.

It is not a real eruption, and nobody pretends it is. It is the closest most people will get to flowing lava, and it works because it’s physical. The room heats up fast when the lava arrives. Take a jumper off beforehand. The operator suggests people who are pregnant, with a small baby or with heart conditions sit in the second row near the exit.

Vík: the original

Lava Show Vík is from €48, 50 minutes, with shows every two hours from 09:00 to 21:00. It was the first one, and it is in the village that sits under Katla, so the story it tells is local. The host explains what the evacuation plan for Vík would be if Katla went off that afternoon. That lands differently when the volcano is behind the building.

The case for Vík is timing. The South Coast is a long drive, Vík is where most people turn round or stop for the night, and weather there changes hourly. An indoor hour in Vík on a grey afternoon is well spent. If you are staying the night there, the 19:00 or 21:00 show is a good use of an evening.

If you’re not driving, BusTravel Iceland’s South Coast Tour & Vík Lava Show is from €173 for eleven hours, with Seljalandsfoss, Skógafoss, the black beach and the show ticket included. It’s a normal South Coast day with the show slotted in, so expect the usual short stops.

Reykjavík: more times, less context

Lava Show Reykjavík is from €48 too, 55 minutes, in the Grandi harbour district, a 20-minute walk from the centre. It runs every hour from 08:00 to 22:00, which makes it easy to fit round anything else. The show is the same format. The film leans on the volcanic risks around the capital area rather than on Katla.

It pairs naturally with a boat trip from the Old Harbour, which is a short walk away. Elding’s Whales & Lava Show is from €152 and Special Tours’ Whale Watching & Lava Show is from €139, four to four and a half hours in total. Whales are never promised, and the boat can be cancelled for weather while the show goes ahead indoors. Read how the combo handles a cancelled sailing before you book it, because two separate tickets are easier to move one at a time.

Is it worth €48?

For most people, yes, once. It’s short and well run, and it answers the question “what does lava actually do?” better than any film. It is not worth crossing the country for. Nobody should drive to Vík for the show alone, and nobody on a Reykjavík-only trip should feel they’ve missed out by skipping the Vík one.

Kids tend to love it, and there’s no minimum age for the show itself. The combo tours set their own age rules, so check before booking a toddler onto a boat.

Our honest take

Pick by where you’ll already be. Doing the South Coast by car: book Vík for the afternoon you reach the village, and keep it as your wet-weather hour. Staying in Reykjavík: book Reykjavík and walk there. Don’t book both. It’s the same show, and the second time the lava is just as hot and a lot less surprising.