Diplo Takes the Sober Sauna Rave Mainstream at Othership

Diplo headlined a sold-out sober sauna rave in Brooklyn on Friday, October 23. HEATWAVE, the alcohol-free party Daybreaker runs with Othership, started at 9 p.m. at Othership Williamsburg with sauna rounds and ice plunges led by the bathhouse’s guides. Then Diplo took the decks and played until midnight. Tickets were $84.

The headliner stayed secret until the day of the show. DJ Lovers Club, the dance-music account that co-presented the night, promised a “LEGENDARY mystery DJ” on October 16, with the “headliner revealed the morning of.” Fans had to comment “HEATWAVE” on the teaser post to get tickets, and it drew more than 700 comments. When Diplo’s name went up on October 23, the account added: “The night is sold out.”

The sauna rave is almost two years old

Daybreaker made its name with morning dance parties. According to EDMTunes, it now runs in 66 cities and counts more than a million community members. Time Out reported that its first night party was at Othership’s Flatiron bathhouse on January 31, 2025, with tickets at $79. By April it had become a monthly sauna series, held day and night.

The partnership moved with Othership. When Athletech News covered Daybreaker’s US plans in September 2025, a sauna rave was already booked for the Williamsburg site, which hadn’t opened yet. In May 2026 Daybreaker took the format to The Standard Spa in Miami Beach for the Miami Swim Week closing party. Its New York event page now says, “Our first HEATWAVES sold out before the ink dried.”

Evening programming built as a night out is how Othership has pitched social bathing from the start, with comedy nights, singles socials and DJ sessions on its calendar. What Diplo added was reach outside the sauna crowd. One guest’s story, which Diplo reshared, read “so much for a relaxing day at the sauna.” The same guest captioned a reel from the front row “only in NYC do you go to a sauna and @diplo shows up to rave.”

The rave ran on different rules from a regular session

On a regular visit, Othership’s FAQ asks guests to “leave your cell phones in the lockers.” Its standard sessions run 75 minutes, and the longest, the Evening Social, runs two hours. HEATWAVE ran three, and guests posted clips from inside it. Diplo posted his own reel the next morning, captioned “still had fun in the sauna tho,” with the line “super weird show, everyone took their clothes off.” The footage shows swimsuits.

Daybreaker sold the tickets and brought the audience. Othership supplied the room and led the heat and cold rounds. Four brands were listed as sponsors on the ticket page, and Daybreaker’s event page says $1 from every ticket goes to the Belong Center, a nonprofit working on loneliness. The ticket price rose from $79 in January 2025 to $84 this fall.

For operators: ticket the party separately

A guided, phone-free session is what members pay for every week. A DJ night sells something else, and the HEATWAVE setup keeps the two apart: a partner sells a separate, higher-priced ticket to its own audience, and the venue runs the heat and cold rounds it already knows. If your hot room is big enough to dance in, decide which night you can give up, tell members in advance which sessions it replaces, and price it as an event, not a visit.

Othership is also building a third New York site on the Upper East Side, due in 2027. The next HEATWAVE is November 20 at Othership Williamsburg, with tickets through Daybreaker, and Othership’s SaunaShare listing covers its regular sessions.

Disclosure: Othership is listed on SaunaShare, which owns SaunaNews.