Fifty Hour Pulse / Wire Festival 2025

Reportage from New York’s underground nightlife.

For 50 unrelenting hours, Knockdown Center, a former glass factory, pulsed with energy. Orchestrated by nightlife pioneers GeGa Japaridze and Téa Abashidze, Wire is no fleeting rave. It’s a deliberate act of cultural reclamation, as New York’s former industrial spaces now transform into playgrounds for misfits, queers, and dreamers.

The Main Hall hosted noteworthy performances, with Luke Slater playing a live set under his alias, Interplanetary Assault Systems, and Freddy K bringing his legendary record collection to spin vinyl until the early morning sunlight beamed through the soaring windows.

Stage 2 was programmed to incorporate collectives, with Berlin’s Pornceptual and Amsterdam’s SPIELRAUM curating takeovers that turned the space into a pulsating queer utopia. Saturday’s standout was the WHOLE Festival’s outdoor Ruins stage, where Dee Diggs and Kilopatrah Jones spun disco-inflected house under the open sky.

The Ambient Stage, tucked away like a secret, offered respite and revelation. Here, artists like Concrete Husband and Wata Igarashi stretched techno into meditative territory. It was the kind of space where you could close your eyes and feel the music rewrite your pulse, a rare moment of stillness in a festival that otherwise demanded movement.

As the final notes faded on Sunday night, the crowd, spilled into the Queens night. Some had danced for 20 hours straight, others for 50. Joints ached, hearts raced, but no one cared. Wire Festival 2025 wasn’t just a weekend, it was a declaration. New York’s underground is alive, and it’s louder than ever.

Fifty Hour Pulse / Wire Festival 2025

Credits:

Festival: Wire / @wirefestival
Words & Photography: Wolf / @wolfthephotographer

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