We’re thrilled to welcome The Upper Bench Podcast to the Seattle Sauna Festival — joining us virtually with a festival-exclusive episode!

If you’re passionate about sauna beyond the trend — the heritage, the family rituals, the community, the culture — you’ll love these three.

Hosted by Sam, Eero, and Risto, The Upper Bench brings an unfiltered, deeply rooted Finnish perspective to sauna. Their mission? To promote a sauna experience that is:

• Culturally rooted


• Practical & real


• Familial & communal


• …and of course, HOT 🔥

For the festival, we will be showing a special pre-recorded episode just for our attendees, exploring the history of sauna in North America — how it arrived, evolved, and helped shape today’s growing culture of heat + community. It will make you question: have we oversimplified sauna?