Creating Experiences To Build Togetherness
How new rituals, thoughtful spaces, and slow social scenes can shape how people gather and recharge
Over the Influence, Sober Dance Event Produced by IP in 2024
Earlier this year, Isenberg Projects released the trend report, Rooted in Nostalgia and Reimagined for the Now, forecasting a quiet but powerful shift toward intentional connection, analog creativity, and the kind of joy that lives in community, not content.
Now, as the year winds down, that shift has grown louder. Across generations and geographies, people are rethinking how they gather, if they gather at all, and the ripple effects reach far beyond trend cycles.
Looking back at the 2023 U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory on Social Connection, loneliness poses a public health risk on par with smoking or obesity. Friend time has fallen by 66% since 2003, and only 16% of Americans feel “very attached” to their local community. Our built environments increasingly reward autonomy, private screens, individualized commutes, self-checkout everything, leaving people hungry for spaces that reward togetherness instead.
From 2003 to 2023, time spent alone increased by 24 hours per month and time spent on in-person social engagement decreased by 14 hours per month.
At the same time economic anxiety amidst both older and younger generations paired with digital fatigue have pushed many toward gentler, slower forms of recreation: sauna soirées, craft circles, dinner parties that last for hours, and soft clubbing: nights out designed for presence, not performance.
People are seeking nourishment. Social clubs are reemerging as sites of creativity and care, cookbook potlucks and analog scrapbooks are back as tools for community storytelling. These moments aren’t about escaping the everyday, they’re about reshaping it together.
As Isenberg Projects revisits our early-year forecast, what stands out isn’t that we “predicted” these behaviors, it’s that we’re witnessing them take root. Across our clients, collaborators, and communities, we’re seeing the same impulse surface: a desire to build more connected and more human social infrastructures.
New Nightlife, Connection over Chaos
2025 Forecast:
A quiet rewrite of what it means to “go out.” Community is built through shared interests and a healthy dose of play but not necessarily through the channels we once called “nightlife.”
For many, the price of connection feels increasingly out of reach. We’re seeing the rise of slower, softer, more intentional gatherings—spaces that prioritize belonging over consumption. Less rave, more rhythm. More room to exhale.
Real Life Recap: Soft Clubbing
Gen Z is rewriting nightlife, and not with velvet ropes. Globally, people are trading vodka for vibes. Instead of nightclubs, they’re opting for wellness-infused events: sober raves, morning DJ sets, and alcohol-free after-dark cafés.
- From India to France, nightlife as we know it is shifting—if not shutting down entirely.
- An article by the San Francisco Chronicle attributes this shift to Covid, a time in which Gen Z “didn’t learn how to party.” Instead, ”all-night raves have been replaced by daytime DJs and coffee shop pop-ups.”
- Eventbrite reported a 92% spike in sober-curious events year over year, while Axios found early-morning dance parties up 343% in Denver.
- VICE calls soft clubbing – “a form of social outing centered more around health and wellness than on alcohol and drug” – the new rave.
This isn’t just about drinking less or becoming antisocial. It’s about refusing to compromise physical wellness for social or financial wellness and creating spaces where the two can coexist. But it’s also about access. Traditional nightlife increasingly caters to a narrower, wealthier demographic. Free and low-cost gathering spaces are becoming critical public infrastructure, lowering the barrier to entry for connection.
⚡️ Isenberg Projects Special Feature
We saw this dynamic firsthand through our work with Rollerama, a pop-up roller-skating rink and programming series with free activities for all ages. Over the summer, 22,000 skate reservations were made, with 59% of guests between ages 18–32 a generation redefining social connection on its own terms. In a cultural moment when isolation is high and financial stress is real, these kinds of experiences matter. They demonstrate that togetherness doesn’t need a cover charge—and that the future of “going out” may look a lot more like coming together.
The Sauna As A Social Space
2025 Forecast:
In-sauna soirées and thermal gatherings offer an intimate alternative to traditional nightlife. Ritual meets relaxation.
Real Life Recap: Communal Sweating
Social bathing is having a moment—and not just in Scandinavia. Saunas with a social twist offer a rare blend of rest and relationship: spaces where routine proximity becomes the foundation for real community. Here, people come not only to recharge, but to reconnect.
- The Global Wellness Summit named “Social Saunas” a top cultural shift, with DJs, art, and group plunges turning steam into scene.
- AP News recounts Swedish trio KAJ’s tribute to sauna culture, blending music and social ritual on a global stage: their Eurovision performance featured dances in oversized white towels set to a song whose title roughly translates as “Just Take a Sauna.”
⚡️ Isenberg Projects Special Feature
We’re turning up the heat for our client Zone 3 with pop-up social sauna programming in partnership with Moki Sauna—shaped directly by our trend insights. This isn’t spa culture—it’s social infrastructure. And it’s only getting warmer. Learn more and register for a steam session here.
Nostalgia, Reimagined
2025 Forecast:
Not nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake—but a conscious return to things that once worked, now remixed for care, creativity and connection.
Real Life Recap: Slow Rituals Savor the Simple Pleasures in Life
Instead of getting lost in a zoom scroll as the default way to pass the time, scrapbooking, journaling, retro digitals and BYO dinner formats—continue to spread as people seek tangible connection in a hyper-digital world.
- Young creators sharing “things to do instead of doom scrolling” lists are on the rise across youtube, substack, instagram and tiktok promoting hobbies, mindful consumption and analogue means of capturing moments as an avenue to a more joyful life.
- From cookbook clubs to communal craft nights, people are finding comfort in creativity—and in the company that comes with it.
- On Reddit’s r/Adulting, users discuss how “offline is the new luxury,” reflecting a desire for experiences that aren’t mediated by screens.
- The resurgence of retro technology, such as flip phones and digital cameras, is gaining momentum. A recent Wall Street Journal article notes that young people are resurrecting these devices as a response to “a feeling they’ve lost control to screens.”
- On Instagram, creators are showing off analog archives: hand-cut collages, scrapbook spreads, and zine swaps.
⚡️ Isenberg Projects Special Feature
Inspired by the growing return to tangible, handmade activities, we recently produced a series of art-making programs for our client Zone 3. Highlights included a pop-up zine-making day in the park with local creative partner Rabbits of Realness, featuring all materials supplied by a mobile art cart—and Test Print Tuesday, a screen-printing series that’s part skill-share, part artist talk, and all fun.
Looking Ahead
As we move into 2026, one thing feels certain: the “friendship recession” is real and part of a dangerous cultural shift. Time with friends is down, spending is tight, and attention is fractured. Yet amidst this crisis of connection, we’re seeing creativity emerge in deeply human ways.
From soft clubbing and social bathing to shared making, people are gravitating toward experiences that are affordable, grounded, and emotionally restorative. They’re looking for ways to gather that don’t demand a full night out or a full paycheck. Spaces where making, sharing, and playing together aren’t limited by a price tag.
For us at Isenberg Projects, these signals give us hope and direction. They affirm that the most meaningful cultural work happens in spaces designed for connection. As creative consultants and placemakers, we see an opportunity to meet people where they are: stretched thin but eager to belong.
We’re carrying that insight into the year ahead, helping our partners imagine public spaces and activities that lower the barrier to entry for the community. Designing for care, play, and the quiet joy of being together. Because trends these aren’t just passing they’re the cultural pulse guiding what comes next.
Trend Report 2025
Rooted in Nostalgia. Reimagined for the Now.
Trend Report 2024
Embrace the Extraordinary.
Zone 3 Case Study
Harvard-Allston Initiative