Making Time festival, Philly’s best-kept secret, can’t get any bigger

Making Time ∞ 2025 is unprecedentedly crowded. At least, that’s what everyone keeps saying. A girl on a nearby picnic bench at the food hall gossips to her friends about how much “chiller” last year’s festival was, while another bemoans the constant line at the Porta-Potties. Online, Redditors remark on the price hikes on alcohol and food — “There’s no way this is part of Dave P’s transcendental plan.” Then, amid it all on Friday night, something big happens: a high-trafficked bridge in the middle of the festival breaks.

In the brief five year history of Making Time ∞ (pronounced Making Time Forever) the festival has never been more packed or popular than this year. Founded by Philadelphia DJ Dave P in 2020 as a branch off a Making Time party series he’d been throwing since 2000, the festival has grown from a one-day electronic music fête of primarily DJs into a three-day event that now includes live bands, meditation rooms, and sound baths. In inner music fan circles, it’s become regarded as one of the East Coast’s best-kept secrets — though it’ll soon likely outgrow that title.

This year saw its largest jump in attendance with over 4,000 people arriving on Friday and Saturday, its most popular day (up from 3,500 as its peak attendance in 2024). In anticipation of the boom, which has been exponentially increasing every year, the festival erected a sixth, new stage, Option 5, parked at the end of a windy nature trail, expanded The Lot Radio’s footprint, and invested more money into higher quality production, projections, and lights. Making Time ∞ is now close to its final form.

“This is as big as it can be,” founder Dave P tells me of the festival’s now sprawling footprint at Fort Mifflin over the phone on Sunday afternoon. “We’ve maximized the space for its full capacity.” If you ask him, this year’s festival wasn’t crowded; it was manageable. Most importantly, as he walked the grounds, he could still feel the transcendental plan in action.

“Transcendence” is Making Time ∞’s grand mission statement, a word that’s both a sincere goal and has become a running bit at the festival. The concept of “transcendence” has integrated itself into the DNA of the event from its map (the festival’s line of Porta-Potties is labeled “transcendental bathrooms”; a bar, the “transcendental wine cave”) to its general lexicon (when that bridge broke down, a poster was erected that said, “Standing on the bridge is not part of Dave P’s transcendental plan right now.”)

Dave P’s “transcendental plan,” which he’s described in interviews as the moment on a dancefloor when the communal atmosphere and the music combine to create something bigger than its parts, was in full swing this past weekend as over 120 sets highlighted the breadth and richness of the community he’s cultivated over the years. Heady, bombastic showings from DJs like VTSS and Japan’s viral ¥ØU$UK€ ¥UK1MAT$U collided with synthy theatrics from Boy Harsher and the atmospheric rush of Nick León. FADER GEN F stars, aya, and YHWH Nailgun brought theatrics, and a Saturday night run of appearances from Fcukers, Avalon Emerson, and Four Tet kept the main tent at maximum capacity.

But the festival’s emotional peak concentrated at the Option 5 stage on Sunday, where Jonnie Wilkes of esteemed DJ duo Optimo performed a four-hour tribute to his late bandmate JD Twitch, who’d died just days prior, on September 19.

The presence of the late and influential Scottish DJ and producer hovered over several of the festivities over the weekend, including at a JD Twitch Beatless Rave that was scheduled for Saturday evening. Dave P says the original plan was to have Twitch to actually perform the beatless rave, however after the DJ revealed an untreatable brain tumor diagnosis in July 2025, “we soon realized he was not going to be able to play,” Dave P says. “But I had spoken to him and Jonnie about the idea of still doing the Beatless Rave [anyway] as a celebration, not knowing he was going to be passing away.” When Dave P received the news of Twitch’s death, he was in the middle of hanging up portraits of the DJ — who had performed the most sets at Making Time out of all other artists — around the festival. “[It was] obviously, really hard.”

“Keith was an essential artist to the history of Making Time [and] an inspiration for me personally,” Dave P adds. “I could honestly say that if it wasn't for Keith, Making Time and this festival wouldn't exist.”

These deep musical connections and Dave P’s clear passion are what ultimately define Making Time ∞ as a festival, one that’s curated by a person who reveres music and the people making it. That ethos is passed down to its attendees, who share cigarettes and make space on crowded dance floors. The grounds itself embodies a rare, unspoilt spirit with its sponsor-free stages and intimate production that emphasized the audience and DJ connection, even as more diverse and marquee acts play. “It's a festival for people who love music,” Dave P says. “The music is first and foremost and, and when I say music, it's all kinds of music.”

Even as it encounters growing pains — several live sets, held at the fort’s stone prison cells and are usually easily accessible, suddenly had lines this year — Dave P makes sure they’re handled with attention and care. That bridge closure on Friday, which became the biggest gossip topic of the weekend? By Saturday morning, the festival’s in-house designer Ian Chapin, also behind several New York City restaurants including Smithereens, Penny, and Hellbender, had built a new bridge. (About what exactly happened, Dave P says, “It's a very old bridge. It was never an issue that the bridge was gonna collapse, it just [didn’t] feel as safe as it should be.”)

Leaving the grounds at 3 a.m. on Saturday night, I saw a future where Making Time ∞ could be (should be?) as big as a Coachella, though the scale would probably never happen without compromises (“Definitely not,” Dave P says at the thought). Thankfully, he has a transcendental plan for expansion, too, a version of Making Time ∞ that could hit the road and bring his universe to the rest of the world. “Because I do believe it's very special and unique.”