Some festivals offer at least the illusion that a ticket holder can see a bit of every act on the bill. But III Points Miami increasingly goes for sensory overload, with more than 150 acts on 12 stages packed into just two days over October 17 and 18 this year—and that’s not even counting the satellite parties elsewhere in Miami in the days leading up to the fest. There’s something to see every minute, if you can handle your FOMO and make peace with the knowledge that something equally cool might be happening a couple blocks away.
The festival’s organizers, including III Points founder David Sinopoli, help make that buffet of sounds easier to navigate by giving each stage names like Mind Melt, Players Club, Despacio, and Isotropic. “I guess it’s a big enough festival that you can curate your entire experience,” Caterina Haddad, whose Suero collective hosted one of the stages, told SPIN’s E.R. Pulgar in October. Pulgar’s dispatch from the festival grounds highlighted dancehall superstar Sean Paul performing his deathless 2005 classic “Temperature” and underground DJs like Diego Raposo and Proletar. But someone else’s memories of III Points Miami 2025 might include a completely different set of artists like Tinashe or Roni Size.
The sheer scale of III Points means that even if an act cancels at the last minute, as one of the Suero stage’s performers did this year, some seasoned DJs will be ready to take their place and keep the groove going. Fans of Nick León, Berrakka, Jonny from Space, and Hyperfemme were treated to a marathon series of surprise sets to fill that gap in the schedule.
III Points Miami has grown steadily over the past decade, from an attendance of just 1,500 in the festival’s first year in 2013 to an estimated 30,000 attendees this year. The festival has always assembled eclectic bills including major bands and superstar rappers, but the emphasis is on electronic music and DJ culture, with acts sprinkled in from other genres that make sense in that context. III Points is multi-faceted with appeal across different demographics and generations without the pitfalls of attempting to be all things to all people at once.
Even the guitar-driven acts on the 2025 lineup, including Baltimore punk phenomenon Turnstile and lo-fi experimentalist Mk.gee, often presented a forward-thinking, genre-fluid style of alternative rock. The festival offered more hip-hop headliners in the 2010s, but the rappers on this year’s bill, including New York eccentric Xaviersobased and Florida’s own Denzel Curry, have the kind of omnivorous sounds and regional influences that mix perfectly with the crowds that flock to III Points for trance, techno, house, and jungle.
For the first time in 2025, each stage was decorated differently, with distinct visual aesthetics and accessories like bubble machines. Whether someone was there for drum and bass vets Chase & Status or cutting edge experimental pop acts like Magdalena Bay or Oklou, the environment they found themselves in felt tailored to the sounds they were hearing.
Sprawling across several blocks of the Wynwood Arts District north of downtown Miami, III Points has always sought out to bring together the worlds of music, art, and tech. Music is clearly the star attraction, but the festival grounds are increasingly a feast for the eyes, with live graffiti, capsule zines, murals, and dazzling light display and projections just about everywhere on and offstage.
Dance music is as much a global melting pot as Miami itself, and this year III Points brought together musicians and DJs from Russia, Romania, the U.K., Sweden, Colombia, Paraguay, Australia, Jamaica, France, South Korea, and just about every corner of the United States to share in a glorious weekend of music. Some festivals get too big too fast and lose their identity. But with its gradual growth from year to year, including a slightly larger jump in size from 2019 to 2021 after the pandemic cancellation of the 2020 festival, III Points has managed to maintain and even sharpen its original vision. Having some perfect warm weather on a fall night in Miami can’t hurt either.
