Rain or shine, both XPoNential Music Festival and Making Time ∞ are happening

The XPoNential Music Festival had to grow into its name.

The annual Philadelphia-area weekend-long music fest has been presented by WXPN-FM (88.5) for 30 years now.

That milestone — marked this Friday through Sunday in Camden at Wiggins Park with 25 bands playing on three stages — grows in significance considering how many Philly-area festivals didn’t happen this year.

The Philadelphia Folk Festival took the year off for financial reasons. Jay-Z’s Made in America was canceled in August (though headliner SZA plays the Wells Fargo Center on Tuesday). And Delaware’s Firefly fest has also been nixed for 2023.

All three say they will return in 2024. But meanwhile, XPoNential will actually be taking place in 2023, with a lineup including Old Crow Medicine Show and Margo Price on Friday, the Hold Steady, and Tegan and Sara on Saturday, and Allison Russell and Low Cut Connie on Sunday.

XPoNential is one of two rain-or-shine three-day music fests happening this weekend — both of which will have to contend with Saturday’s stormy weather forecast.

The other, which is in its infancy in comparison, is Making Time ∞ — Philly DJ and impresario David Pianka’s growing electronic and ambient music event at Fort Mifflin.

But first, a little about XPoNential’s history, and what’s happening this year. In its first decade after it was founded in 1994, the music fest was staged at the brick-lined Great Plaza at Penn’s Landing and was called “Singer-Songwriter Weekend,” reflecting XPN’s narrower musical focus at the time.

In 2004, the station had a dispute with the Penn’s Landing Corp. over who owned the “Singer-Songwriter” name, said Roger LaMay, who began his tenure as XPN’s general manager that year.

“I said, it’s not about the name, it’s about the music,” he recalled. “So we changed it briefly to the ‘It’s All About the Music Festival’,” for 2005 and 2006. “Then people convinced me that wasn’t a very good name,” LaMay said. “And we changed it to XPoNential.”

The festival moved to Wiggins in 2005, and in 2012 expanded to include shows next door at the Freedom Mortgage Pavilion. This year, the fest is happening entirely at Wiggins. “For our 30th, we decided to go back to what we were,” said LaMay.

Presenting bigger names next door in the future remains a possibility, “but we’re going to take it one year at a time, and see what makes for the best festival. And our core audience loves Wiggins Park.”

In addition to the acts mentioned above, highlights on this year’s schedule include Say She She, the self-described “soulful female-led band from Brooklyn and London” whose music hearkens to the disco era.

Saturday is the day to see Wednesday, the standout North Carolina indie rock band led by Karly Hartzman, as well as the great risqué nonagenarian blues man Bobby Rush and guitarist Celisse. Sunday features both Bruce Hornsby & the Noisemakers, and Josh Ritter & the Royal City Band, plus folk punk guitarist Sunny War, and Haitian American songwriter Leyla McCalla.

Philly acts play throughout the weekend. Don McCloskey, Nick Greeley & the Operators, and Christine Havrillah play Friday, as do Gypsy Fuzz. Julia Pratt and Moustapha Noumbissi are scheduled for Saturday, and Velvet Rouge and “boom-bap-jazz band” Mobbluz are on Sunday.

Meanwhile, back on the Philadelphia side of the Delaware River, Making Time ∞ will go off at Fort Mifflin, the 42-acre, five-stage site at the National Historic Landmark with a history going back to the Revolutionary War near the Philadelphia airport.

This is the third year at the fort for Pianka, who promises an experience that lives up to his favorite word: “transcendental.” To get to that higher plane, he’s booked over 100 bands and DJs.

It’s a supercool bill, with Jamie xx and Philly zither, mbira, and piano player Laraaji. Avalon Emerson will play both a DJ set and with her band, the Charm, while electronic musician Julianna Barwick will pair with harpist Mary Lattimore.

Philly DJ Josh Wink will close with a “transcendental state of consciousness” performance on Sunday. Lighting design is by Klip Collective. Making Time food options will include Middle Child, Dizengoff, Goldie, Cantina La Martine, Two Persons Coffee, and vendors from FDR Park’s South East Asian Market.

Both XPoNential and Making Time ∞ are rain or shine, with Making Time providing several tented or indoor areas.

A full schedule and weather-related XPoNential schedule changes can be found on the WXPN app and on xpnfest.org. XPoNential will also be streamed on xpn.org and broadcast on the radio. Making Time info and updates are at MakingTimeIsRad.com and on the Making Time page on Instagram.