If Jack Mitrani and Danny Davis have proven anything outside of their snowboarding abilities, it’s their taste in music. Specifically, a talent for pulling together a well-rounded lineup of musicians that bring their best to the Frendly Gathering year after year. Blues to barn-stomping, jam bands to rock and roll, bluegrass, funk — you name it, it’s there — along with Frendly’s signature all-star collaboration sets that leave you absolutely floored. If you were on the fence about another Frendly, you know that’s why you can’t afford to miss it: you never know what might happen late night, you just know it’ll never happen again.

The Twiddle set by the pond brings everyone together. P: Ali Kaukas A beautiful weekend on Timber Ridge. P: Ali Kaukas

The real magic is the intimacy and the energy of the festival. There’s no place like home in the the Green Mountain State, where the fresh Vermont air and subtle hilltop breeze keep you cool, calm, and grateful, and the creative homegrown stages are just plain joyful to gather around. Plus, the inclusive philosophy that Jack and Danny promote is so much more than a mantra: There’s an absolute intangible difference between the community vibes of the Frendly Gathering and every other festival we’ve partied at. If you’ve had a tough year and you could use some new friends, come see us. If you’ve had a great year and feel like celebrating, let’s do it. Next comes Jack and Danny’s ability to improve the event each year. The activities are thoughtful, the lineup more impressive, and the Gathering’s ability to attract the family back each summer is inspiring. We caught up with Jack and Danny to see what’s in store for 2016.

Thursday night in 2015. P: Ali Kaukas

Talk to us about this year’s lineup—what are you most excited about? Jack: We’re always excited about Twiddle because we get to be creative: This year they’ll have a campfire set, maybe a surprise something, a pond set, and they’ll play on the main stage to close things out. We’re really excited for Big Gigantic: we saw them two years ago at the Burton US Open, and we’ve been huge fans. There’s this band, The Givers, that Danny and I have been huge fans of for a while. Monophonics, who I just recently found — they’re huge on the west coast, and I’m not sure the east coast knows about them. It’s this soul, funk, passionate music. Danny: Big Gigantic doesn’t play many shows on the east, so hopefully that stokes people out. I’m excited to see them in our atmosphere. The Gathering always has a great jazz scene, great folk and bluegrass, some good rock and roll here and there, and tons of soul. To have a big electronic act — that also actually plays instruments and puts on a great show — is exciting. Jack: The creative stuff we’re doing at the Burton Teepee will be really fun: We’re working on putting together members of Twiddle and Cabinet for a little mashup. All in all, this is my favorite lineup out of the six years we’ve been doing this.

The 2015 Nahko set at the Burton Teepee. P: Ali Kaukas

So there’s the lineup, but so much else going on at the festival. Jack: More than anything, it’s about people coming together for a really fun weekend. We have the 10 Anchors of Frendship, and we’re attaching an activity to each one of those anchors to show how these values translate into real life activities. We’ve got the skate ramp, a lot of yoga — one of the members of Moon Hooch will teach a session. Trevor Hall and Kevin Pearce are going to link up and do a little Love Your Brain workshop in the Martin Dome. The list is still growing. Danny: I’m excited to head down to Southern VT and start working away…mowing, weed whacking, chain saw-ing…The Wood Stage is gone and we’re building a new stage. The details are yet to be determined.

The mini ramp is a staple. Always good people and good tunes to skate to. P: Ali Kaukas What inspired the artist collaboration we always see Frendly? Jack: I went to Stratton for The Royal Family Affair a couple years ago, and all the bands at the end played an all-star set — Lettuce, Dumpstaphunk, Soulive — and it was awesome. I thought this is what Frendly should be, because our whole mantra is “there’s no I in Frends,” and everyone should be working together to achieve something greater. So when you put that philosophy into the bands’ hands, that’s exactly what happens.

[It’s worth noting that at this exact moment in the interview, Jack opens an email from Twiddle’s management proposing a collaboration with Big Gigantic…something about a Gigantic Twiddle set.]

Can you talk about the Frendship a bit? Jack: Frendly Gathering is something that comes around once a year, and it’s been great to bring our friends together to work on something that we’re all passionate about. We thought it would be cool to keep that energy and story going 365 days a year, so we bought a 1971 airstream and converted it into a mobile recording studio that we could take around to all the major snowboarding contests, piggybacking off of events, picking up bands along the way.

The Frendship's start, before the entire thing was stripped out and the interior wrapped completely with wood for acoustics. Then they worked with brands like Behringer to outfit it with sound recording equipment.

And then they had to get a truck for it. The Frendship connecting Mark McMorris with some of his fans over Skype.

Jack: It’s also fun that we have Skype involved, because part of the Frendship mission is to connect people to their heroes. Now we want to figure out how to work with Love Your Brain. So say there’s someone in the hospital and we can bring them in over Skype to see their favorite band: That would be success for us. Keeping that Frendly message going 365 days a year is really the goal. Check out the Frendship in action with Madaila.

Picking up on inclusivity… Danny: I always say you can go to any festival or any show and see music, but seeing shows at Frendly is different than seeing them anywhere else. It’s our place where all of our friends get to come chill. It’s a great introductory festival — you won’t be scared away. There are no mosh pits, it’s not vibe-y. It’s very go-at-your-own-pace. You can be at the front of the crowd easily if you want to, or stay in the back. It’s a big mountain so you can go get away real quick. On the other hand, if you go to festivals all the time, ours is a nice break from the madness.

How’d you nail down this year’s lineup? Jack: Everything we do — whether it’s the music or activities — is always very crowdsourced. We use our Facebook channel as if we’re all in an office together. We’ll get 400 comments and go through, put it on a spreadsheet, see who got the most inquiries, and go after those bands. We also get thousands of submissions, so we work with Higher Ground Music to help us with our talent buying. It’s a combination of all of us working, looking, and listening to as much music as possible, in order to put together an eclectic lineup that speaks to every demographic, not just one, because that’s really the whole inclusive purpose of Frendly.

Long days and epic nights. We hope to see you there! P: Ali Kaukas