Whitefish High School alumni return to produce music festival locally

From DJing and throwing small events while attending Whitefish High School in the early 2000s to now producing a music festival locally, Nick Ferrington and Seth and Lisa Macalister are living the dream.

The three of them hoped to one day put on a music festival together and now the Area 406 Music and Arts Festival is in its third year at the Flathead County Fairgrounds. The two-day festival, featuring electronic dance music, dubstep, hip hop and other genres of music, is this weekend on Friday, June 30 and Saturday, July 1.

The festival got its start after Ferrington and the Macalisters found themselves back home during the Covid-19 pandemic. After high school, they went separate ways. Ferrington headed east to Boston and Orlando working for Disney and DJing and Seth headed to Southern California to attend audio engineering school.

They met up again during the pandemic and began talks of one day starting a music festival. Those discussions became reality in 2021 when Ferrington was hoping to put together a small low-key festival for his birthday. When he got Seth involved, plans changed and they decided to go all in. That summer was the first 406 Area Music Festival.

“We just grew up as acquaintances in high school and we’ve grown into a really good friendship and business relationship now,” Ferrington said of Seth and Lisa.

They decided on the Fairgrounds as a venue and got to work booking acts and planning stage, lighting and sound setup.

Ferrington is a full-time DJ locally in Whitefish and the valley as well as working part-time for a company called Insomniac Events that produces larger festivals across the country. Seth owns a production company in Los Angeles, LAAV, and his wife Lisa does event planning and runs logistics behind the scenes for the company. They have also partnered with Clark Hartigan who owns a production company in Los Angeles and works often with Seth on events.

With that team, they were able to get all the equipment needed and handle event logistics.

NOW THREE years later, Area 406 Festival will feature three stages of music with performances from world-renowned artists including DJ Dan, Megan Hamilton, Ahee, AU5 and Grammy Award-winning dubstep act Nero.

Ferrington says he is active in the local electronic dance music community and attends a lot of festivals. Seth Macalister is involved more in hiphop music and the scene in Los Angeles. Both are able to utilize their connections to draw impressive acts to the Flathead. They also poll people in the community to ask what acts they would like to see and through all of that come up with a lineup that gets better each year.

Nero also performed in the festival’s first year in 2021 and is a well known dubstep performer that has toured with Deadmau5 and played in places like the Red Rocks. Megan Hamilton is from Montana and plays a lot of funk and bass. In addition to these larger acts, the festival features over 30 local and regional artists from hiphop to dubstep to house music.

“All around it’s a really fun lineup, a nice variety of folks, people who love electronic dance music and folks who might not I think are going to have a really good time,” Ferrington said.

A unique feature of the festival is the Silent Disco, where attendees are given wireless headphones and can select from three different DJs playing simultaneously for a truly unique dance floor experience. Other activities include on-site camping, a vendor village, food trucks and live art installations.

Ferrington, who acts as the festival’s executive producer, says it's been incredible to see this festival come to life and get better each year.

“It’s amazing. It’s honestly been a dream for a long time…” he said. “I really am proud of what we’ve done with it so far and am excited to see what people think of it this year. Hope we can just keep coming back every summer.”

The show is for ages 18 and older. For tickets or more information visit www.area406festival.com.