Sauna Theatre at Summerhall, Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom
About this story
Sauna Theatre is a purpose-built working sauna and performance venue created by Studio Three Sixty with Sauna Sessions Arts Club. The approximately 80-seat interior combines tiered sauna benches, heating equipment, controlled airflow, theatrical lighting and surround sound. Programming includes Aufguss rituals, theatre, literature, music, storytelling and morning raves, with audiences moving between the heated room and cold-plunge facilities. The design team studied sauna precedents across Europe and Asia and consulted sauna masters and ritual practitioners. The resulting modular and demountable building is intended to tour to future sites around the United Kingdom.
Status and timeline
The venue opened for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August 2026 and is operating daily during the festival. Performances continue through August 31. The structure is designed to be dismantled, relocated and reused as the central venue for a future itinerant sauna-arts festival.
Design highlights
Sauna as a performance typology; environmental heat and airflow as theatrical media; integrated bench geometry, lighting and sound; modular demountable construction; temporary cultural infrastructure; choreography of changing, heating, cooling and audience circulation.
Important dates
· final Fringe performance date and current ticketing window · Details ↗
