The magazine debuted on June 13, 2003.[9] Its first six issues were edited by Jón Trausti Sigurðarson and Valur Gunnarsson. In its second year, the magazine grew in circulation from 25,000 issues to 30,101. In its third year, American-born Bart Cameron took over as editor, also editing Inside Reykjavík, the Grapevine Guide, in 2006 through the Mál og Menning imprint of Edda Press.[10]
Bart was followed over the next decade by editors Sveinn Birkir Björnsson,[11] Haukur S. Magnússon,[12] Anna Andersen,[13] Helga Þórey Jónsdóttir,[14]Sveinbjörn Pálsson[15] again, Jón Trausti Sigurðarson.[16] and Valur Grettisson.[17] The current Editor-in-Chief is Canadian-born Catharine Fulton. [18]
During the Iceland Airwaves music festival, The Reykjavík Grapevine became a daily publication focusing on music for some years. From 2016 to 2019, The Reykjavík Grapevine published a special magazine[19] to celebrate the Iceland Airwaves festival and started a quarterly city-guide sister publication, Best of Reykjavík. A thrice-annually Best of Iceland magazine followed. The magazine's relative longevity has positioned it uniquely as an English-language publication about Iceland and has sometimes made it a popular reference point in international news and media.[20] Similarly, in 2016, the magazine's Twitter coverage of the Euro 2016 football tournament became popular internationally.[21][22]
