Rob da Bank pledges to make the Isle of Wight a sauna hotspot

Rob da Bank has swapped DJ sets for saunas

The man who convinced superstars like Elton John, Stevie Wonder and Snoop Dogg to perform on the Isle of Wight is embarking on his latest venture.

Rob da Bank, co-founder of Bestival and a former Radio 1 DJ, has found a new love that has left him a little bit hot under the collar - saunas.

And now he wants to bring one to "every corner" of the Isle of Wight.

But will islanders be sweating in anticipation for his latest quirky plan? Or will it just run out of steam?

It is, by no means, the first eccentric idea to come from the mind of Mr da Bank.

In 2015, he inflated a giant rubber wedding chapel at Bestival and charged couples £45 for fake wedding ceremonies.

And the year before that, he bagged a Guinness World Record for constructing the world's largest disco ball in one of the festival's fields.

After 12 years at the island's Robin Hill Country Park, Bestival relocated to the Lulworth Estate in Dorset in 2017 - leaving a hole on the island that da Bank felt needed filling.

It prompted him to open a sauna in Yarmouth - and he plans to eventually turn the Isle of Wight into a "Sauna Isle".

Rob da Bank co-founded Bestival in 2004

"I love sauna culture", the Portsmouth-born 50 year old says.

"Now I've had this sort of madcap idea of putting a sauna on each corner of the Isle of Wight."

He could be on to something - with a recent rise in the popularity of ice baths and cold water swimming among British people, there might be demand for its steamy counterpart.

The practice is thought to have originated in the Nordic region about 10,000 years ago, with many modern households in Finland constructed with built-in saunas.

Gabrielle Reason, secretary of the British Sauna Society, says it has cardiovascular benefits and its effects can mimic a runner's high.

"You get that endorphin-inducing experience, an almost hedonistic result from the exposure to heat and steam," she says.

Admitting it is quite a leap from organising festivals, da Bank says: "I was just talking to some guys from the Finnish Institute, which is connected to the Finnish government, and I jokingly said 'you don't have any spare saunas, do you?'"

It turns out they did have one - and it needed a permanent home.

The Finnish Sauna is an architecture project by students at the University of Westminster

The "one-of-a-kind" electric sauna was built for the London Festival of Architecture and was a collaboration between architect Sami Rintala and the University of Westminster.

Constructed from Finnish timber, it was inspired by the Tube in London - its architecture combining traditional sauna and Nordic boat-building methods.

The Finnish Sauna toured the country, visiting Lake Windermere during the Lakes International Comic Arts Festival in 2022, the Port of Dover and London's Victoria Embankment Gardens in 2023.

Da Bank has now organised for it to feature in a three-month "slow motion" experience in King's Cross, before it makes its way to the Isle of Wight.

Rob da Bank enjoys spending his time in ice baths and saunas, away from his phone screen

He believes the UK is "thousands of years" behind the Finnish, Lithuanians and Russians when it comes to saunas.

"But it makes so much sense once you've done it," he adds.

Jaakko Nousiainen, director of The Finnish Institute, agrees, describing it as a "cornerstone" of all Finnish culture.

"It is a place of rebalancing, recalibrating and recovering," he says.

"The mental health benefits of sauna are just as important as the physical ones - sauna offers a chance to get offline and to enjoy a dip into digital detoxification."

So from Finland to Freshwater - just what is Mr da Bank's vision for the Isle of Wight?

He says he wants to bring Finnish culture to the island and introduce it a new way of socialising.

"For people who like looking after themselves, saunas are like the new pub - why go out on a Friday night and have a hangover? Go into a sauna."

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