Hot Tubs, Sauna & Nordic Tipis

“We both love Scandinavia, and one time, back in the summer of 2006 we were in Norway driving through the forest when Onno suddenly slammed on the brakes. There, in the clearing stood a giant tipi. We had no idea what we could do with it, we just knew we had to have one!” says Caro.

When they came back home the tent was still on their mind. As a happy surprise for these lovers of the north, the tents were (and still are) hand made in Swedish Lapland by Tentipi.

“So we thought ‘we can try with one tent, organise some great outdoor activities in it, and see what we also can do with it as a rental’ and we placed the order. Pretty soon it turned out we needed two tents. Three tents. Four tents…. ”

Getting a free hand

By that time, the Lowlands festival wanted to create a soothing chill-out zone at an area divided from the rest of the event by a body of water. There was a Finnish entrepreneur providing sauna tents and a yoga instructor giving classes. Caro and Onno had already been involved with the Lowlands festival for many years, providing mobile climbing walls as an activity for the visitors of the festival. They were asked to provide the Llowzone area with two tents and another tent on the festival area, and they got on the boat.

"It’s very creative! For example, we have to have storage for the fire wood for the saunas. But instead of storing it in the boring pallet boxes they come in, we disassemble the pallet, use the pallet collars as frames and pile the wood inside of them. We then use them as walls or dividers to make separate areas in the Llowzone. They look gorgeous and perfectly match the natural, authentic feeling of the Tentipi tents!"

Sweaty business

One of the biggest challenges taking over the Llowzone was to fill the shoes of the Finn. According to Caro he was a bit of a character and had his own fan base of sauna-lovers.

"We had a hard time topping him because, although his sauna didn’t look that great, he was an expert in running a hot sauna tent. The tent he had was made for a bigger group of people. Our saunas can only hold max. 6 people at a time. We also had to work real hard to match his quality of heat. But we managed to succeed and on the last day of our first Llowzone (back in 2013) we received a big compliment from his biggest ‘die-hard’ fan!"

Running a sauna tent is quite a sweaty business, it turns out. Caro has 10 people in her crew working shifts during the three days of the festival, while Caro herself never leaves site during the 12 hour long days.