MOS Basics
A PERSONAL REQUEST
Every year it is months of my life to update the website, write emails, send out international flyers and posters. I offer you the MOS-label with its 20 years-history its worldwide unique presence and reputation. All I expect in return is that you represent MOS the right way as defined below.
ACTIVE SPONSORS
ISUPPORTSTREETART
Requirements
- Logo on communication materials
- Info about open calls
- Photos from events etc
Check them out on their website
STREET STUDIES
Requirements
- Logo on communication materials
Check them out on their website
CHECKLIST
- Catch up on our news since last years MOS
- Check in your event
- Promote the artist call www.meetingofstyles.com/apply
- Connect your Instagram to Facebook and make sure to add Steffen Gray and me as Admins on your page
BASIC REQUIREMENTS
Every year our Global Team and I spend months to update the website, write emails, send out international flyers and posters. I offer you the MOS-label with its 20 years-history its worldwide unique presence and reputation. All I expect in return is that you represent MOS the right way as defined below.
Basic requirements are mandatory and must be followed.
Spots and artists
- The spot should be accessible by public and reachable by public transport. It must be equal to a minimum of 40 artists. The bigger, the more attractive!
- Using the application platform on the website is mandatory. National organizers needs to check in on the platform each year, and get back to your applicants.
- The artist line-up needs to ensure a high-quality outcome and should represent various crews and cities from several countries. MOS should not be used to represent only your homeboys and friends. It is about intercultural exchange, bringing artists together and to support networking – And Invite artists from other countries.
- If artists who do quality-work from other countries apply for wallspace please help in accommodation, directions and paint. You don’t necessarily need to cover hostel, but help in finding low cost and safe place.
- You may link up with the MOS-scheduled one week before and after your event so you may transfer foreign artists from one to the next event.
- Global Team have up to two spots on each Meeting of Styles.
- Focus is on graffiti-/urban art. Other disciplines of hip hop, urban, street-culture are also welcome but as something extra.
Schedule
- Every year starts with a checkin in january, where artist calls are scheduled and contracts signed. After each event, you check out, upload materials, write a blog-update, evaluate with your team and make sure that you shut down in style.
- Dates are based upon the dates of former years and are expected to be fairly stable from year to year.
- MOS events are planned based on a natural progression from continent to continent spanning most of the calendar year
- Meetings are usually two to three full days.
- Consider opening parties, art shows, lectures or film screenings to make your MOS more relevant and attractive.
MOS schedule follows a tradition established in many years. The basic idea is to keep the dates for the future and to establish recurring events the same week every year. This way artists, audience, other organizers and partners will know when to make time in the calendar.
The progression of national events is divided by continent:
ASIA: March to May
EUROPE: May to August
NORTH-AMERICA: September
MEXICO: October
SOUTH-AMERICA: November and December
![MOS Basics 1 - Meeting of Styles: International Street Art & Graffiti https%3A%2F%2Fstorage.googleapis.com%2Fglide prod.appspot.com%2Fuploads v2%2FbiCo1eg539yElBvq1HoG%2Fpub%2FzoqhK66VlJWzLCoOydDC - Meeting of Styles: International Street Art & Graffiti](https://res.cloudinary.com/glide/image/fetch/f_auto,w_1875,c_limit/https%3A%2F%2Fstorage.googleapis.com%2Fglide-prod.appspot.com%2Fuploads-v2%2FbiCo1eg539yElBvq1HoG%2Fpub%2FzoqhK66VlJWzLCoOydDC.png)
Sponsoring
- The MOS-logo and main website has to be presented on all graphics and infos of your MOS! Make sure it has a central spot.
- No change of MOS-logo. There is only one logo-version, the original version!
- Sponsors and partners of the international MOS-organisation have to be presented on ALL national online and offline channels (including: Advertisements, graphics, flyers, posters, national websites, Facebook-pages and other channels etc.) together with your main national sponsors!
- Make sure to support our spraycan & T-shirt sponsors with nice photos and promoting their websites from time to time.
- Add www.meetingofstyles.com on a central location on your website, facebook page and in all graphics such as posters, flyers, advertisement, your pressrelease and all infos.
Social media and websites
- On Facebook will be only one official event created on the MOS-website. Add this event to your national FB-page!
- Update your post on the website frequently as well as the FB-event with details and infos! For the website you have a personal log-in. Update of the posts frequently is very important!
- Support the Int. MOS-Facebook-Page and the Int. MOS-Instagram channel by posting stuff and sharing stuff of your event! This is important!
- No individuals or groups can own a Meeting of Styles account. Even if made, grown and maintained by national organizers, Meeting of Styles international will need full access to the channel at all times.
- If you stop organizing, the channel will be passed on to the Global team and reactivated if another organizer team wish to host a national event in the same location. The same applies if the Global Team excludes you for breaking with the intentions behind the brand.
Social media and website statistics
- Street Studies (Who’s part of the MOS Global team) helps us measure how far our platforms reach and provide ud with the kind of numbers sponsors need.
- On your national MOS facebook page, add Steffen Gray as admin. Make sure to connect your MOS-Instagram account with your Facebook page.
- Steffen reports back to me, and I will use your performance to help us land the best possible deals and opportunities for the organization
Contribute to the website
- After check-in your MOS on the website, a post will be created. It is mandatory that you update this post frequently! Your post is the first info about your MOS and the better you present it on the website, the more applications you will receive. The applications are the foundation of the quality of the artworks created at your MOS.
- In your post on the MOS-website you can upload logos of your national sponsors and partners. Make use of this option to support your sponsors and partners.
- Add basic infos! Short introduction, spot pics, size of the spot, program, adress. These informations are essential!
- All requests for participation have to go through the application form on the MOS-website This is extremely important and absolutely mandatory for all organisations!
Promotion
- Check for local, regional, national media-partners. The more publicity you can get, the better for the Meeting and the better for you. It may bring you commercial jobs or future sponsors.
- Press-release including basic infos about MOS at least one week before the event to invite local/regional/national media.
- Make sure to have national meeting of styles channels up and running. Each year, create a Facebook-event and/or website update for your national MOS.
- Create a Facebook-page, Facebook-event or website for your national MOS and invite our number-cruncher Steffen Gray as admin
- Add www.meetingofstyles.com in all graphics such as posters, flyers, advertisement, your pressrelease and all infos. This is highly important for cross-promotion to promote MOS as a worldwide festival-series!
Media materials and merchandise
- On any video-materials, the international partners and meetingofstyles.com need to be presented at the beginning/end.
- After the event, send high-resolution photos/video of event, finished artworks, movies or anything else related to MOS within 4 weeks to the website!
- For MOS-merchandise please specify the merchandise and quantity. Quantities of more than 3 products of 200 copies each require an extra approval!
City partnerships
- Meeting of Styles encourages organizers to work with their cities such as youth centres, cultural institutions, social programs, urban planners, tourism organizations etc. You have something to offer.
- National organizers can gain a lot of benefit from working with the local departments.
- We encourage collaborative fundraising.
Make sure to follow our guidelines
If the requirements are not met, and if your organizers does not meet the standards of a Meeting of Styles – You will be closed down. Being a national organizers under the Meeting of Styles brand takes effort and we need to see you stepping up every year.
We can all have a bad year, but we expect active, serious, committed and unity-minded organizers showing up for check-ins and check-outs. The good Meeting of Styles-reputation starts and ends with our national organizers. We are far too big to have our organizers unloading tasks onto us on the Global team.
We are committed to making this awesome for you! But if you do not meet our standards, you will receive a warning – And if you the situation doesn’t improve, you will need to step down. This will mean that the organizing rights can be handed over to another organizer.
When you decide to host a MOS, you have a responsibility towards the artists, but also towards all MOS organisers.
In essence…
Do it right or step down.
This is very simple. We give a lot of freedom in how you want to organize, every city, team and street art scene is different. What we expect from you is that you organize in good faith, in a collaborative way and with respect for all people in and around the organization.
However, if you’re being asked to step down, you will need to sign over your communication channels etc. so another organizer can follow in your foot steps.
Int Meeting of Styles owns any communication channels made in it’s name, and even though you use the channel to grow an audience, at the end of day it’s built on the Meeting of Styles name – and as you have exclusive rights to hosting MOS-events in your city as long as you remain active, you are preventing others to host events in your city.
//Manuel Gerullis
Founder and president of Meeting of Styles