How Dave P. turned a Revolutionary War-era fort into an international dance music destination

Making Time has stood the test of time.

This weekend, David Pianka will not only celebrate 25 years of his roving Philly dance party. He’ll also be marking five years of Making Time ∞, his music festival, at Fort Mifflin, the Revolutionary War-era stronghold where over 120 DJs and bands will perform Friday through Sunday.

Back in 2000, Pianka wasn’t yet Dave P., the internationally known DJ and impresario known for promising partygoers all-capped TRANSCENDENTAL experiences, such as those in store this weekend at Making Time ∞, which is properly pronounced as Making Time Forever.

Pianka was a barista at the Last Drop in Washington Square West and the Bucks County native wasn’t really putting his master’s degree in physical therapy to use. He got his music kicks placing Belle & Sebastian and Yo La Tengo albums in the coffee shop CD changer and then hit Philly dance parties like Mike Z.’s indie night Sorted and Gregg Forman’s R&B night The Turnaround.

“I was meeting all these DJs and people in bands, going to all these parties with this friend of mine, Ani Beijian,” Pianka said.

Dressed in a striped shirt and orange pants, he roamed Fort Mifflin’s 42-acre grounds during an interview, as bars and stages were being built and 18th-century brick structures converted into wine caves and chill-out rooms.

“We were like: Wouldn’t it be cool if we did a party where all these parties were in one club, but on different floors? There was a party called Bang in L.A. like that, and I thought it’d be cool if we did that here. I didn’t want to be a promoter. I didn’t think this is what I was going to be what I did with my life. I just wanted to have a party.”

That party became Making Time, named after the 1966 song about clock factory workers by British rock band the Creation. The first soiree was held on Memorial Day weekend at Transit, in the Frank Furness-designed building at Sixth and Spring Garden Streets that previously housed Stephen Starr’s club the Bank.

The evening was a success, and Transit owner Billy Weiss offered Pianka other slow holiday weekend nights to bring bodies into to his capacious club.

Making Time was off and running. On Labor Day weekend that year, Pianka started booking not only DJs of disparate styles, but also high-energy live bands, adding a sense of special occasion.

The first Making Time live band was Philly’s the Inflatable Men. And Pianka reeled in many rising acts early in their careers, including the Strokes, the Hives, the Rapture, Bloc Party, Hot Chip, the xx, and Blood Orange. In 2012, Brat-to-be Charli XCX played her first-ever U.S. show at Making Time at Voyeur in the Gayborhood.

Pianka, 50, creates unique experiences in unexpected places. In 2010, James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem — who often performs in a Making Time T-shirt — headlined Making Time at the Navy Yard.

In 2019, Pianka — whose reputation as a DJ has steadily grown, with regular gigs in Croatia and Spain — presented a Pure Spa party at a Bucks County Russian bathhouse.

Seeking outdoor spaces during the pandemic led him to the Moshulu, the four-masted barque docked on the Delaware River. In August, he staged an Atlantic City beach day called Making Waves.

Hopes of hosting a festival that could rave on until the wee hours without fear of violating noise ordinances had him focused on the Navy Yard, but he could never get necessary permissions.

Then his fellow tastemaker Dryw Scully tipped him to Fort Mifflin, which was built in 1771, bombarded by the British six years later, and housed Confederate prisoners during the Civil War.

Scully had attended a wedding at the Fort, which is believed to be haunted and is available for “private paranormal investigations.” Pianka lives there during the lead-up to the festival, and tells of hearing footsteps made by unseen beings in the deep, dark night.

In 2021, he pitched his idea to then-executive director Elizabeth Beatty. To his delight, “She said, ‘That sounds cool!’”

Fort Mifflin annually hosts the Philly Renaissance Faire, so an indie electronic music fest didn’t sound too far out to her.

“Fort Mifflin is a monument to perseverance and ingenuity,” said Beatty, now events manager at Historic Bethlehem Museums and Sites in the Lehigh Valley. “And the Fort needs to make money. It’s a site rental.”

She calls Pianka “one of my favorite human beings in the world. He elevates everybody in a room once he walks into it. And he is one of the only people I have ever met in my life who has done every single thing he said he would.”

That was put to the test in 2021. Pianka caps the capacity of Making Time ∞ at a comfortable 3,000, with an audience “half from Philadelphia and half from all over the world.”

Only 600 people showed up that first year, and Pianka took a bath financially. But in 2022, the fest expanded to two days and grew in size.

But the next year, near disaster struck when Tropical Storm Ophelia drenched the Fort, which is surrounded by a moat and borders the Delaware. The fest went on, but tickets sales were severely depressed. And the flooded site was trashed.

The fest faced “Where is it and how do I get there?’ challenges. (It’s at Hog Island and Fort Mifflin roads, near Philadelphia International Airport. Shuttles run from the host hotel, the W, in Center City, and satellite lots closer by.)

Pianka says he lost almost $200,000, with $25,000 worth of damage done to the Fort, a National Historic Landmark.

“I think that’s an understatement,” said Beatty. “But Dave said he would make it right, and made good on that. In six weeks, there was sod in the ground.”

A significant part of the remediation, Beatty said, came from fans who abide by the Making Time foundational mantra of PLURT: “Peace, Love, Unity, Respect, and Transcendence.”

“They have an affection for the site,” said Beatty, who hangs with Pianka’s mother and aunt at the fest. “Every person I met was lovely and gracious. I never felt like an old grandma.”

The near catastrophe “brought us even closer together,” Pianka said. “It gave them more trust in me, and what we’re doing.”

This year, things are brighter. The weather looks ideal. Pianka expects the weekend to sell out, with a few new wrinkles like a super-intimate Option5 stage located at the end of a nature trail.

The fest will include sets by renowned DJs like Four Tet, Yousuke Yukimatsu, Moodymann, and John Talabot, plus live performances by Panda Bear, electronic music pioneer Suzanne Ciani, and Sun Ra bandleader Marshall Allen with harpist Mary Lattimore.

The Fort will be luminescent at night, courtesy of Ricardo Rivera’s trippy Klip Collective. Philadelphia ambient composer Laraaji will present a Laughter Meditation session and Brooklyn sound meditation facilitator Samer Ghadry will immerse listeners in transcendental sound baths.

The food is in a class by itself among Philly music fests. Grub will be available from Irwin’s, Cantina La Martina, Tabachoy, Meetinghouse, Pizzata Pizzeria, Jezebel’s, Neighborhood Ramen, La Llamita Vegana, and others. Plus, Two Persons Coffee.

Pianka won’t be performing because he’ll be so distracted that “it would be the worst DJ set I ever played in my life.” But he does expect to turn a profit this year.

“Theoretically, yes, I’m supposed to make money,“ he said. “But at this point, I love doing this so much that it’s honestly like a dream. When I first started doing this stuff, I was thinking about how cool it would be to do a music festival.

“And now that I’m doing it, it’s pretty amazing. Part of what I love about it is what it’s become for Philadelphia. Fort Mifflin is known around the world. No one in Philadelphia even knew what it was five years ago.

“It would be: Where’s Fort Mifflin? And now it’s a universal name in the music industry. Which is incredible!”

Making Time ∞ at Fort Mifflin, 6400 Hog Island Road at 1 p.m. Friday-Sunday. makingtimeisrad.com.