Autumn holiday 2023 at the museums
Published 29 September 2023
Are you looking for fun activities for families during the autumn holidays? Look here!
12 August 2023
A festival that brought everyone together
This year’s Viking Festival had food and drink as the theme, and the main attraction on the program was the food demonstrations organized by Diana Rodriguez Keller, who has worked at Lofotr Viking Museum for many years. Diana demonstrated something new every day: lamb thigh roasted in cooking pit (Wednesday), beer brewing (Thursday), roasted pork (Friday), the Viking cooking competition (Saturday). On Sunday, guests had the opportunity to taste a hot drink seasoned with honey, cinnamon, mint and ginger under the direction of Kim Holte (one of this year’s festival coordinators).
Edita Nurmi was also supposed to attend the festival and give food demonstrations about Curonian food traditions, but due to an accident she could not travel to Lofoten. Despite that, the program was full of activities and attractions for both young people and adults. There were battle shows, concerts, Viking Boot Camp for children, lectures (Lofotens Ville Kjøkken and prof. Alf Ragnar Nielssen), theater performance, market, Viking fashion show, and Viking games in the festival area, and workshop in the Chieftain’s House.
The most visited festival since its foundation
The numbers speak for themselves. With 7674 guests (according to statistics), this year’s Viking Festival is the most visited ever. The second most visited festival was in 2016 with 7487 visitors. The summer season 2023 was already very positive with the visitor numbers, and therefore expectations for this year’s Viking Festival were great, since the goal was to reach the same result as in 2019, before the corona pandemic hit the tourism sector. The participation and enthusiasm perceived by visitors, Viking participants and volunteers show that the festival was a great success.
Good atmosphere
During the festival days, the atmosphere in the Viking camp was positive, and the favorable weather certainly helped. Especially since it was sunny, nice and warm days on Wednesday 2nd and Sunday 6th August. But the success of the festival is mainly due to the participants who gave more than 100% of their energy: Teater Basun, Olaf Skjegglaus, Kjell Braaten, Víkverir, participants in the market, Egge and Lofoten Vikinglag, and not least all employees and volunteers. They are an important part of the festival and we want to thank you for this year’s participation and we are already looking forward to next year!
