III Points

Three strands, one warehouse district

III Points was founded in 2013 by David Sinopoli together with the team behind Bardot, the Miami nightclub whose booking policy shaped the festival's taste. The premise was stated in the name: music, art and technology held in one place, programmed against the format other American festivals had settled into. It landed in Wynwood at the point when the district was turning from warehouses into galleries, and the festival has stayed on that ground ever since, at Mana Wynwood.

The first edition drew about 1,500 people. By 2025 that figure was around 30,000 across two nights, which makes III Points one of the few festivals of its size that can still name the year it was a party rather than an operation. Resident Advisor's own shorthand for it is multi-genre, and the back catalogue of performers supports that: Justice, LCD Soundsystem, Arca and Massive Attack have all played.

The Club Space axis, and what scale cost

The festival does not stand alone. By late 2016 Sinopoli, with Coloma Kaboomsky and Davide Danese, had taken control of Club Space, the downtown Miami club that runs around the clock; Insomniac, the Live Nation-owned promoter behind Electric Daisy Carnival, took an ownership stake in Space in 2019. That connection gave the festival production muscle and a second venue that absorbs its overflow, and it is the reason a III Points weekend does not actually end when the site closes.

Growth brought the usual bill. The fifth edition, over the weekend of 13 October 2017, ran across three days and five performance spaces, with Gorillaz headlining the Friday on a set built around live music and video narrative, Skepta playing one of the warehouses, and Danny Brown, Arca, Abra and Kali Uchis on the bill. Lines and crowds were heavy for the headliners and the Friday sold out first. A review from that year made the criticism that still shadows every expansion: at a smaller scale the festival caught the oddities of the Miami art scene more closely than it could once it filled the yard.

The booking rule

What separates III Points from a touring-headliner festival is where the money goes. Sinopoli put it plainly before the 2025 edition: "I've fought really hard to keep 60% of the lineup money for artists people don't know yet." The festival runs an Open House submission system through which it has booked more than 885 slots for Miami musicians over its lifetime, and the practice is visible in the way lineups are announced — the 2026 phase three reveal, on 24 September 2026, was given over entirely to more than 100 Miami-based artists, among them Nii Tei, Dude Skywalker, FIIN, La BB, Mystic Bill and TECH G1RLS.

That local-first instinct extends past the music. The 2025 edition added III Points Radio, a stage broadcasting on 93.5 FM and programmed with underground local acts whose sets outlived the weekend on air, and hosted Despacio, the vinyl listening room built by LCD Soundsystem and Soulwax, in the Black Room. In September 2026 the organisation ran Points of View, a free two-day trade seminar for Miami artists and industry workers at the Historic Alfred I. duPont Building downtown, with sessions from 2pm on 26 and 27 September covering booking, promotion and city planning.

Where it stands now

The 2025 edition, on 17 and 18 October, is the benchmark: more than 150 acts, 11 to 12 stages depending on the count, five Wynwood streets closed, and roughly 30,000 people through the gates. Sean Paul, Turnstile, Tinashe, Denzel Curry, Chase & Status, Magdalena Bay and the drum and bass veteran Roni Size all played, alongside Ca7riel & Paco Amoroso and Villano Antillano from the Latin side of the bill. Each stage was given its own visual treatment that year for the first time, bubble machines included. On 12 December 2025, SPIN named it festival of the year, crediting the curation and the fact that it had grown without losing the original idea.

For 2026 the scale has gone up again. The first names came on 27 April 2026 — Four Tet, Underworld, KI/KI, 999999999, horsegiirL, PAWSA, Adam Port, Kelela, Tricky, Tokischa and ¥ØU$UK€ ¥UK1MAT$U — with a promise of a hundred more to follow. Phase two added Charlotte de Witte, Blood Orange, Flying Lotus, Lil' Kim, Hamdi, Kettama, Cloonee, Odd Mob, Interplanetary Criminal and Levity. Phase three brought the Miami contingent plus Honey Dijon, Marco Carola, Daphni, DJ Harvey, Jacques Greene and Ahmed Spins. The official site now lists 294 artists over the two nights across 13 stages.

Around the festival sits a week of satellite programming, Satellite 26, running 13 to 20 October 2026 and ticketed separately, along with travel packages bundling flights, hotels and shuttles.

The site itself

Mana Wynwood is not a field. The festival occupies about five city blocks of yards, lots and warehouses, and the stage names function as districts: Mind Melt, Isotropic, Sector 3, S3QUENC3, RC95, Vertex, Players Club, Halo 88, Grand Central, Door IV, Unforeseen, 444 and III Points Radio. Isotropic is the outdoor main stage, identifiable by its laser grid and the mirrorball hung above the floor; the enclosed rooms take the techno and the harder bass programming.

Several of the known problems have been addressed for 2026. The Isotropic dancefloor has been fully paved and its footprint widened after flooring improvements were trailed in April. Sector 3 has been significantly expanded to move people through it, and S3QUENC3 has been relocated with a larger production. A VIP+ tier with artist-lounge access has been added above the existing tiers, and reservation dining from Miami restaurants now operates on site. Tickets start at $149 for general admission, $179 for GA+, $275 for VIP and $399 for VIP+, which is restricted to over-21s.