From front left to top bench: Why combining sauna and music is so hot right now.

Observing the latest in UK sauna culture, it's hard not to notice that everyone’s referring to it as ‘the new pub’ or an alternative to traditional nightlife. It might feel new and innovative, but combining sauna with melodies and hypnotic beats has been around for a while - and across the globe. Whether it’s a bass-heavy rave in a Russian bathhouse or an ambient listening session in a candlelit sweat lodge, the fusion of saunas and music is drawing in crowds seeking connection, health, and euphoric experiences.

A new kind of nightlife.

Sauna Social Club in Peckham has made the combination of sauna and electronic music the cornerstone of their offering. Only launching last September, it has quickly bloomed in popularity to become the most followed UK sauna on Instagram, owing to not only a world-leading music programme featuring DJs that many bigger clubs and festivals would die to book, but an endless stream of well-curated, entertaining and informative social videos.

Launched by Nikki Gardner (DJ name Nikki Tesla) and Benji Teare, the venue oozes peace the moment you step through the door. Downstairs features a main sauna with a soundsystem for deep listening and Aufguss performances, a small bar and a cosy lounge with cushions, blankets, and multicolored light projections. On Friday and Saturday nights, Sauna Social Club hosts ambient listening sessions and live performances, and on Sunday, combines them in the sauna with Aufguss sessions. Although craft beer and cocktails are available, equal emphasis is on herbal teas and alcohol-free drinks, fostering an inclusive atmosphere for both drinkers and the sober-curious.

More recently, ARC in Canary Wharf has opened to great fanfare. Alongside a purpose-built Aufguss sauna from the experts at Finnmark, ARC welcomes DJs to play in its beautiful relaxation lounge, as well as integrating music into its guided wellness rituals. Fittingly, ARC will see Dan Lawson of Nomadic Sauna performing at this year’s UK Aufguss Championship. After delighting the audience last year to a performance about Boris Johnson’s awakening as an ecowarrior as Future of Sound’s Papua New Guinea pumped through the sauna, he recently hosted a Secret Sauna Rave. Introducing himself as ALF GUSS, invitees were told on the invite: Respect the vibe. No egos, no aggression, and keep the door shut.

The UK is noted as being characteristically eccentric and playful with sauna culture, pushing boundaries at the same time as honouring older traditions. Remixing time-old traditions with new explorations of wellness seems like a comfortably British thing to do. Turns out, we’re not that unique - similar references can be found across the globe.

New York: Bathhouse raves reborn.

In Brooklyn, Steamroom is one of the wildest examples. Founded by Sam Liebling, this party takes over Russian bathhouses like Brooklyn Banya, transforming them into techno playgrounds. The dress code is swimwear-optional. The music is hard, loud, and sweaty. Attendees dance, plunge, steam, and repeat. Dancing in a steam-filled room with beats echoing off tile walls and bodies glistening is an incredibly liberating experience – part rave, part spa, part intimate house party. Attendees range from club kids to curious wellness folks to older veterans of NYC’s gay sauna scene. The nights build on the legacy of New York’s historic bathhouses, like the legendary Continental Baths. Once safe havens for queer communities, these modern parties introduce a new generation of clubbers and wellness seekers to a throwback hedonism.

Nordics: Saunas alongside everything.

In Finland, the spiritual home of sauna, the fusion with music has taken both lighthearted and artistic forms. At Allas Sea Pool in Helsinki, bathers can alternate between hot saunas and outdoor concerts. At Bodom Bar & Sauna, named after the legendary metal band Children of Bodom, fans rock out to heavy metal in a sauna-themed pub.

Just across the border in Oslo, Norway, SALT is taking things further. A cultural village of shipping containers and pyramidal saunas, it hosts DJ nights, concerts, and rituals inside its massive sauna, Árdna. On any given night, 100 people might be sweating together while they enjoy DJs playing a hot selection of tunes.

Berlin: Club culture with a meditative twist.

Berlin, famed for its techno clubs and alternative lifestyle, has also merged its club culture with wellness in creative ways. Berliners pioneered the idea of the “spa party” in venues like the Liquidrom, which features a futuristic domed saltwater pool and sauna area. Patrons float in the warm pool or sit soaking in the sauna’s dim glow while DJs play gentle techno and downtempo sets; underwater speakers even allow you to hear the beats while submerged, creating an uncanny immersive sound. These weekly events draw both clubbers winding down and wellness enthusiasts seeking a twist on the spa, proving that in Berlin, techno can be meditative too.

Even roving parties like Herrensauna - a queer techno collective - draw inspiration from sauna culture. Though not held in an actual sauna, the events channel the same energy: sweaty, primal, liberated. Suitably, they recently played a New York Steamroom party.

Escapism, intimacy and altered states.

So why are these events resonating so strongly with people across cultures?

First, they offer an intoxicating high without the hangover. Extreme heat and cold exposure create powerful physiological effects, including dopamine spikes and endorphin rushes. Pair that with music with especially repetitive, hypnotic rhythms, and the result is a natural euphoric state.

Second, they provide intimacy in an age of disconnection. Traditional nightlife can feel impersonal, but saunas remove pretence. Clothes come off. Phones stay away. Conversations happen. Whether you’re dancing in steam or meditating to ambient harp, there’s a shared vulnerability that’s rare in modern social spaces.

Saunas also tap into something ancient and universal. Across cultures and centuries, heat-based rituals have been used for healing, purification, and community bonding. Today’s sauna parties may look modern, but they speak to that same human need for transformation, presence, and connection.

The science behind the sweat.

To understand why sauna + music events often feel deeply meaningful, it helps to look at the psychology behind intense group experiences. One of the most powerful theories here is identity fusion, a concept developed by anthropologist Dr. Martha Newson.

Newson’s research, which explored everything from football fans to religious rituals, shows that physically and emotionally intense experiences can cause individuals to feel deeply bonded with others, as though they become part of a shared identity. “When people go through physically taxing or emotionally intense experiences together, they often feel more fused – like they’re part of a family, a tribe, a team,” Dr. Martha Newson explains.

Sauna-music events are the perfect fusion trigger. They combine:

• Physical intensity: Enduring heat, plunging into ice, the catharsis of sweat, and the group bonding effect of beta-endorphins.

• Multisensory transcendance: Trance-like music, raised heart rates, and sensory stimulation.

• Shared vulnerability: Partial nudity, stripped-down aesthetics, raw presence.

• Shared ritual: Cycles of challenge, release and renewal mirror ancient rites of passage.
  

Attendees often describe feeling emotionally close to strangers after just one event. Some say it feels like therapy; others call it church. “It’s not just a party. It’s a tribe,” one participant put it.

By triggering identity fusion, these experiences help explain why people return again and again - not just for the music or the sweat, but for the deep sense of connection and belonging that emerges.

Sweat as social glue.

In an era where loneliness is rising and screen time dominates social life, these events offer something refreshingly analog and elemental. You sweat together. You breathe together. You move together. You emerge transformed.

Whether it’s in the ritual heat of an aufguss performance or a swimwear rave in New York, the message is the same: music and sauna, together or separately, offer a space to feel alive, present, and part of something bigger.