Harvia Sponsors Aufguss World Championships 2025 in Verona, Powered by EOS

Harvia Group sponsored the 2025 Aufguss World Championships, held in Verona, Italy, and the event sauna used at the competition was powered by an EOS heater, the German premium brand Harvia has owned since 2020. The sponsorship was confirmed as part of Harvia's Q3 2025 investor presentation on 6 November 2025. For the European sauna community, Aufguss Worlds is one of the few competitive events that actually brings the trade together in person. For Harvia, the sponsorship is a direct extension of the brand-building program laid out at Capital Markets Day 2024.

What Aufguss Is

Aufguss is the German word for "infusion," and in sauna terminology it refers to a choreographed ritual in which a trained "Aufgussmeister" pours scented water on heated stones and waves a towel in synchronized patterns to circulate the resulting steam around a group of bathers. A typical Aufguss session runs 8 to 15 minutes, builds to peak heat and humidity, and combines performance, sound (often music), scent (essential oils and ice balls), and athletic towel choreography. The practice is standard at German-speaking Central European commercial sauna facilities and has been spreading globally as social sauna culture expands.

The Aufguss World Championships is the premier global competition for the ritual, with national qualifiers, team and individual categories, scoring by certified judges, and routines that can run up to 15 minutes with multiple water throws, towel patterns, and music integrations. The event brings together sauna professionals, commercial operators, and enthusiasts from dozens of countries. On the commercial side, the ritual has matured into a real revenue product: Galgorm Resort in Northern Ireland, host of the 2026 UK Championships, pulls roughly $12,700 a month from a single 30-seat Aufguss room as a £20 add-on to spa packages.

Why EOS Is the Right Brand for the Sponsorship

Harvia sponsored the event and used an EOS heater rather than a Harvia-branded heater specifically because Aufguss is a Central European practice heavily associated with German and Austrian sauna culture. EOS, founded in 1944 in Driedorf, Germany, has been the dominant premium heater brand in German commercial saunas for decades. EOS holds an estimated 60% share of the German premium sauna heater market and is specified by most major German spa and commercial wellness operators. Using an EOS heater at the event sauna reinforces the brand's positioning where it has the deepest authentic connection.

The broader Harvia Group marketing strategy unveiled at CMD 2024 called for EOS and Harvia to operate as two global master brands with complementary positioning: Harvia as the accessible full-range brand, EOS as the premium commercial and German heritage brand. Sponsoring Aufguss Worlds with an EOS heater executes that strategy perfectly in the single event that matters most for commercial European sauna operators.

Part of a Broader Brand-Building Push

Harvia's Q3 2025 marketing activity includes Aufguss Worlds alongside the ThermaSol Solaris TIME Magazine recognition, the Fenix controller and MyHarvia 2 app launch, and continued international influencer activation on social media (CMD 2024 highlighted Japanese sauna influencers @jun_esune, @shhhiyo, @joey_hryk, and @ashrcrawford promoting Harvia globally). The pattern is consistent: Harvia is investing heavily in brand visibility in the specific markets, communities, and channels where sauna culture is already strong but Harvia brand awareness is still under-indexed relative to its market share.

That marketing spend is showing up in operating expenses. Q3 2025 operating expenses increased year-over-year specifically because of investments in "product development, brand building, channel expansion, and operational efficiency," according to the company's investor materials. Sponsoring Aufguss Worlds is one line item in that budget. For a company with EUR 198.9 million in 2025 revenue running a 19 to 20% operating margin, several hundred thousand euros on global sauna sponsorships is a rounding error in expense but a meaningful brand-equity asset over time.

Event snapshot: Aufguss World Championships 2025. Location: Verona, Italy. Sponsor: Harvia Group. Event sauna heater: EOS (German premium heater brand, Harvia Group since 2020). Ritual: choreographed Aufguss (towel-waving, scented water, music) originating from German-speaking Europe. Parent Group: Harvia Plc (Nasdaq Helsinki: HARVIA).

Aufguss Worlds is a niche event that punches far above its attendee count in sauna-industry influence. Title-sponsoring it with an EOS event sauna is exactly the kind of brand investment that does not move the revenue line in a single quarter but compounds over years as commercial buyers, spa designers, and sauna operators associate the Harvia-EOS pair with cultural authority in the one ritual practice that defines modern commercial sauna. For German-speaking Central Europe specifically, this sponsorship is a statement that Harvia-EOS intends to hold the premium commercial market it dominates, not cede it to Klafs or other German rivals.