This year, the fifth edition of the Sauna Region Week will broaden its program to discussions on topical societal issues. Organized in collaboration with the summertime Jyväskylän Kesä Festival, a new event, called “Lauteilla” (“On the sauna benches”), will give a kick-start to a wider offering on sauna discussions planned for summer 2022. The topic of the virtual event on July 1st this year will be sustainability. The event will be held in Finnish. Next year, these talks will hold a prominent place during the Sauna Region Week, and in the coming years the talks event will expand over several days and different types of sauna destinations.
“The panel discussion that will be livestreamed during the sauna week serves as a warming-up for the Jyväskylän Kesä Festival. This new event will be a nice complement to the range of events offered by our festival, the oldest city festival in the Nordic countries. We will continue to follow the COVID-19 situation, hoping that a small live audience could eventually participate. The rest of the festival program will be released next week.”
Kyösti Ylikulju, Festival Manager of Jyväskylä Festival
The content of the panel discussion will be specified in May. The panelists of the accountability debate will feature interesting personalities who represent various professions from the events and travel industries, among others.
“We are really excited about this new talks event which aptly combines not only our two flagship events of the coming summer but also the strengths of this region as a major sauna region and as a city of education and learning. The sauna has traditionally served as a stage for interesting discussions and even for decision-making. Using the sauna as a venue for the festival’s talks program with engaging and topical themes is therefore very inspiring.”
Susanne Rasmus, Tourism Director of Visit Jyväskylä Region
Sauna Heating World Championship as the high point of the week
This year, the Sauna Region Week hosts around 40 small-scale sauna events across the Jyväskylä Region. The festival usually takes place in late June/early July. Its program features a multitude of different types of saunas, including smoke saunas, lakeside saunas and a public sauna, and there is also a package combining a sauna evening and a lake cruise. Visitors can moreover choose from a variety of luxury treatments in the sauna and learn about the history of the Finnish smoke sauna. For the fifth time already, the Sauna Region Week will culminate in a Sauna Heating World Championship in the area of Peurunka in Laukaa. Registration is now ongoing for teams.
“Participation is in teams of 3-4 persons. The goal is to heat a sauna tent up to a set temperature as fast as possible. The fastest four teams will compete for the title of winner in the finals later that day. All you need is cooperation skills, a good team spirit and a positive mindset. We naturally follow the pandemic situation, wishing very much that the competition can take place. There is no better way to pass a July Saturday on your summer holiday than to be busy heating the sauna or cheering on your friends.”
Event Producer Tiina Ruotsalainen from Ext Ventures Ltd.
A SaunaPark will be set up in the margins of the competition to allow visitors to experiment with different kinds of Finnish saunas and heated outdoor soaking tubs. This event is planned to be live-streamed and would then be able to be watched outside Finland.
“In Japan, there is a major interest in the Finnish sauna, and this is a great opportunity for the fans to experience the special ambience of sauna even during the pandemic. All around the world, sauna searches rank high among internet searches on travel to Finland. Here in the Sauna Region, too, the demand for sauna experiences is clearly on the rise among tour operators and the media with a view to plans for the near future.”
Tuomas Paloniemi, Project Coordinator from Visit Jyväskylä Region
In 2015, the Jyväskylä Region (Central Finland) declared itself the Sauna Region of the World. The Sauna Region Week will take place from 26 June to 3 July 2021. Program: https://visitjyvaskyla.fi/en/sauna/saunaregionweek/
For more information:
Kyösti Ylikulju | Festival Manager, Jyväskylä Festival | [email protected] | +358 44 5789 485 | jyvaskylankesa.fi
Tiina Ruotsalainen | Event Producer, EXT-Ventures Ltd | [email protected] | +358 400 603 638 | https://saunamm.fi/english/
Susanne Rasmus | Tourism Director, Visit Jyväskylä Region | [email protected] | +358 400 885 786 | visitjyvaskyla.fi
Tuomas Paloniemi | Coordinator for the “Lakeland/Jyväskylä Region” project, Visit Jyväskylä Region | [email protected] | +358 50 475 3752 | visitjyvaskyla.fi
Pictures: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1dUSgcy_oo9mxQYwcmkRv8RgsUbeHA_yX?usp=sharing
Photos must be credited to the photographer and to their owner, Visit Jyväskylä Region.