SMÜG Sauna Events
From muddy finish lines to celebrities in ice baths, hilltop festivals to canal side activations, SMÜG Sauna Events is bringing something new to the outdoor events world
We can design you a sauna experience, from a cold plunge area to a disco sauna, a recovery zone at the finish line of a sports event, a corporate team building wellness day for your staff or clients, or a calm space backstage for your crew and artists. SMÜG Sauna Events is here to deliver. If you can imagine it, we can produce it.
Sauna is fast becoming the new social. The Edinburgh Festival Fringe has hosted the UK's first purpose built sauna theatre, with theatre, comedy, music and spoken word performed in the heat. In Peckham, Sauna Social Club has become a sauna pub alternative. Sauna raves are a regular occurrence in East London, and Hackney Wick has its own sauna festival with bands and DJs alongside the cold plunges.
It's an exciting time for sauna and cold plunge in the UK. Once tucked away in hotel spas and gyms, sauna has become one of the fastest growing ways people choose to socialise, relax and recover. The British Sauna Society now lists almost 640 public saunas in the UK, up from just 45 in 2023. We're now seeing a real change in how sauna is used, and SMÜG is here to bring that to your events.
Many festivals now have spa and wellness areas with traditional wood fired saunas, and audiences love them. SMÜG adds something new alongside this: an extra space that takes sauna somewhere different, from performance and play to sport and recovery.
SMÜG's sauna tents are fully accessible, level entry and wheelchair friendly, and they work like a blank canvas for your event. Design your own space around your event and your audience. The beauty of these tents and plunge pools is that they can go almost anywhere, from a field to a city centre, and they can be dressed and programmed to fit into your event however you want. With multiple saunas and multiple cold plunge pools, SMÜG can scale up from a single sauna to a whole sauna village, or run front of house and backstage at the same time.
Cold plunge for hotter summers
The Met Office warns that extreme heat is becoming more common in the UK, and festival audiences are feeling it. Cold plunge could transform your festival offer. SMÜG can create multiple cold plunge areas across your site, from VIP areas to audience wellness and cool down zones where people can come and cool off.
Sauna still has its place in summer too. Regular sauna sessions help the body adapt to heat, so pairing sauna with cold plunge gives your audience the full experience whatever the weather.
Who we are
SMÜG was founded by Pheona Kidd, a cross arts producer with twenty five plus years of experience in theatre, festivals, outdoor arts and live events.
Built by a producer who understands how event sites work, what production teams need, and how to deliver safely, with full risk assessments and insurance in place.
Some of SMÜG's previous events include Soccer Aid for Unicef's training camp, Sisterland Festival, Womanifest, Born Survivor, Nuclear Races and Cheshire Wellness Festival.
The science behind the heat
The health benefits are hard to ignore. A Finnish study that followed more than 2,000 men for over 20 years found that those who used a sauna four to seven times a week had:
• a 40% lower risk of dying from any cause
• a 50% lower risk of fatal heart disease
• a 66% lower risk of developing dementia
compared with men who went once a week.
Come and see it for yourself
SMÜG will be at the Showman's Show with one of its sauna tents lit and ready. Pop along to stand 270 in the outdoor area, speak to Pheona, feel the heat and talk about what you're imagining for your event.
📍 Stand 270, outdoor area
📅 21 and 22 October, Newbury Showground