Making Time ∞ 2026 featuring 120-plus acts over 3 days
Making Time founder Dave Pianka said this year’s lineup hearkens to the festival’s launch 26 years ago, offering up more live band performances in addition to its hefty slate of DJs.
Making Time ∞ 25 | Photo by UV Lucas, courtesy of Making Time ∞
Making Time ∞ — known as Making Time Forever — returns to Philadelphia’s Fort Mifflin and is sharing the weekend with our own XPoNential Music Festival from Sept. 18 to Sept. 20 and the lineup features more than 120 acts, with more to be announced. Headliners for the 2026 installment include Bicep, Kim Gordon, Theo Parrish, Daphni, Skee Mask, and Smerz.
This year’s lineup bridges myriad strains of fearless music, with pioneers such as Dopplereffekt and Mark Ernestus joined by present-day innovators like Philly’s own They Are Gutting a Body of Water and ear. Key figures from Making Time’s 26-year history are making their return, too. Those include Avalon Emerson (both DJing and performing live with her band, The Charm), Optimo (Espacio), and Mary Lattimore, who will collaborate live with Jeff Parker.
The lifeblood of Making Time has always been forward-thinking dance music, and this year’s lineup includes defining voices in contemporary club, including Marcel Dettmann, Sandwell District, Octo Octa b2b Eris Drew, Batu, Loidis, Carrier, Tiga, Jump Source, Paula Tape, and Aurora Halal b2b Verraco.
But what continues to set Making Time apart is the sheer scale of the lineup and a vision that extends beyond DJing to showcase some of the most exciting new bands and live acts in the world.
“This year’s Making Time ∞ lineup sets its sights on the future whilst also harkening back to the origins of Making Time,” Making Time founder Dave Pianka said. “When I started Making Time in the year 2000, the party was based around booking live performances from bands like The Strokes, Interpol, Bloc Party and LCD Soundsystem alongside DJs. This year I’ve booked more live performances than ever before.”
Live acts appearing at Fort Mifflin this year include the unclassifiable Los Thuthanaka, Australian post punk royalty Carla dal Forno, modern psych folk purveyors @ and Dagmar Zuniga, Quiet Light, Cancer House, Shane Parish performing Autechre compositions on guitar, Valentina Magaletti & upsammy, and the singular 53-year-old Greek Orthodox priest/guitar ripper Father Dionysios Tabakis.
Great Circles’ beloved ambient/chill-out room returns to a historic casemate, an 18th-century structure that once offered refuge to soldiers and now offers refuge to ravers and zoners in need of a break. The Lot Radio will broadcast from a dedicated stage and the mighty Klip Collective will transform the site into a psychedelic dreamscape.
Three-day passes for Making Time ∞ 2026 are available online here. Tickets with no service fees are being offered at Middle Child and Middle Child Clubhouse in Philadelphia, as well as The Lot Radio in Brooklyn.