Values
Mostra: a festival to nourish the scene
The name Mostra is a reflection on what’s happening in the Barcelona scene. It links with ideas of art, film and theatre mostras, or showcases, and in a similar way each edition of Mostra makes a feature of a guest country by bringing artists to the roster from that region.
We programme a new way of listening to and enjoying the most advanced electronic music with a festival concept that aims to go beyond the norm: to discover different musical genres and offer visibility to artists who don’t traditionally feature on the Barcelona venue and festival circuit.
Mostra is more than a four day festival event: it seeks to offer an alternative experience that brings everyone who participates closer to the city.
We are a festival that identifies with Barcelona, a project for our city that aims to contribute positively to its artistic vitality and its communities.
We want those who call Barcelona their home to make it their own and feel it belongs to them. That's why we work to weave networks across the scene among collectives, labels, artists, record shops and other agents in the city.
And so Barcelona is in need of a festival like Mostra: we are here to join forces and become a benchmark for a new type of festival with its own identity, committed to what’s local, what’s inclusive, and what’s sustainable.
Local
- We seek to program local artists to highlight home-grown talent and boost the electronic music scene in Barcelona; approximately one third of our festival's performances are from artists who live in Barcelona.
- We work mostly with local suppliers and suppliers from the social and solidarity economy of Barcelona, especially in terms of bar and catering services.
- We invite record stores and other collectives in Barcelona to join an exhibitors' fair during the days of the festival in the Fira.
- We broadcast a radio podcast program - MostRadio - and generate content related to the city's electronic music scene throughout the year, helping promote local artists, labels and collectives.
- We hold events in community halls and clubs, cultural facilities and other spaces in Barcelona, but also in other cities across Spain and abroad, to program artists who might not otherwise be able to perform in these spaces. Under the name ExtraMostra, over three seasons we have held a total of 45 events. In Barcelona, this includes venues such as Laut, Sala Taro, Upload, Centre Cultural Albareda, Espai Jove la Bàscula, Paral-lel 62, 33|45, Bar 18, Salvadiscos, Curtis Audiophile Café, Red 58, Buena Onda Social Club, Moog, Switch Pocket Club, Apolo and Razzmatazz.
- We host our website on the .barcelona domain, because Mostra identifies with Barcelona and is a project for our city.
- We collaborate with the social and solidarity clothing brand of the Sindicato de Vendedores Ambulantes de Barcelona for the production of our merchandising items; Top Manta is a brand created to improve the living conditions of street vendors, a project conceived with ethical and sustainable criteria, and which guarantees the future of local communities instead of forcing them to migrate.
- We prioritize the publication of content related to the festival with local media, including Scanner FM, HOC Radio and Sub Radio.
- We organize a series of debates, seminars, conferences and workshops related to the main themes of the festival under the name of Mostra'm. These conferences respond to the three values that we value across the whole project. Mostra'm programming has included the festival's commitment to the local in its content since its first edition:
Inclusive
- We have a gender specialist colleague within the team, who leads this aspect through an action plan with different initiatives under the name of MostraRespect for each edition.
- We created MostraRespect as a space dedicated to respect, diversity and pleasure within the framework of the festival, with the aim of preventing and reducing the risks of gender violence so that everyone can enjoy music equally.
- We consciously choose proposals for our line-up, seeking to program a high number of women and dissident genders to seek to break the gender gap in what is traditionally a very masculinized scene.
- The whole team has been trained in prevention and attention to sexual and LGTBIphobic violence in nightlife spaces, understanding that this is a problem that must be addressed jointly from each area of the project.
- We developed our own protocol against sexual violence and LGTBIQA+phobia, always taking into account the context of alcohol consumption and other substances with a gender perspective, which we review and update in each edition.
- We are part of the No Callem network of the Barcelona City Council, in order to join forces with local institutions and obtain more resources to address sexual violence at the festival.
- We have a Punto Lila service (under the name MostraRespect) during the week of the festival, to promote the well-being of all attendees and workers.
- We offer an extra reserve of portable urinals for the exclusive use of FLINTA people.
- We collaborate with Fem Taxi to ensure the safe transportation of women and dissident genders to the different locations of the festival.
- We seek to give visibility to artists who have traditionally been excluded from the circuit of venues and festivals in the city. In this sense, we have made an open call addressed to women artists and dissident identities under 30 years old for the ExtraMostra event held at Espai Jove la Bàscula (2023) and another one at Centre Cultural Albareda (2024) within the Music Data program by UPCArts with Digitalfems and EllESmusic.
- We attended the congress "A transversal look at nightlife with a gender perspective" (2023) organized by the collective Sot a Terra, where we reflected on queerness, protocols of action, women and music, sexuality and the use and consumption of substances with responsibility in nightlife contexts. In this way, we seek to broaden the gaze around gender in the festival, as well as to incorporate new strategies in our project.
- We participated in the framework of a research to develop a guide of actions for the prevention and reparation of sexist and LGTBIphobic violence in the Catalan cultural sector of the Department of Feminisms and Culture of the Generalitat (2023).
- We attended to the presentation of the documentary ‘Underplayed’ at the Civic Center La Sedeta (2022), which explores gender inequality through the electronic music scene, screened as part of the programming of the In-Edit Festival in collaboration with Barcelona Districte Cultural. We were also part of the discussion group after the screening of the same documentary in a second screening at the Albareda Cultural Center.
- We attended as speakers at the third Vermut Feminista (2023), a social initiative promoted by the Comehome community within the framework of 8M activities, where we addressed the issue of self-esteem in relation to the dance floor from a gender perspective.
- We also participated as speakers at the roundtable on good practice around the implementation of protocols and other actions for prevention and care regarding sexual violence and drug use in private and self-managed nightlife, as part of the conference "Protocols for dealing with sexual violence, drugs and parties: what have we learned?, organised by the Observatorio Noctàmbulas (2024).
Sustainable
- We have a Green Ambassador within the team, who establishes and leads on an action plan based on adapting experiences and creating best practices. Thanks to the help of our strategic partner ReRoot, we have developed a three-year roadmap based on the identification of three fundamental areas of work: 1) How we show up; 2) Festival sites and operations; 3) Travel and hospitality.
- We limit air travel for foreign artists by scheduling fewer names from abroad, helping reduce the carbon footprint of a festival through a lower impact in terms of mobility.
- We promote the use of public transport through awareness-raising campaigns to travel to the festival by sustainable means of transport, as well as operating up to three private shuttle buses from Castell de Montjuïc to the city center to facilitate the return of festival-goers.
- We developed alliances with sustainable tourism accommodations in the city such as Andante Hotel, Casa Jam and Twentytú Hostel, offering discounts on overnight stays to the public.
- We power one of the festival spaces with 100% renewable energy batteries to avoid the use of fossil fuels.
- We rent or prioritize the shared use of materials instead of acquiring them again, through entities such as the city's Banc de Recursos Mancomunats.
- We use reusable cups and disposable cardboard tableware in bar and catering services, to minimize the use of single-use plastics. Part of the proceeds from cups returned in the 2024 edition has been donated to the migrant women's collective Kantina Migrante.
- We prioritize the contracting of services, such as food concessions at the festival, to social insertion or social and solidarity economy entities in Barcelona, such as for example with the Abarka and La Raíz cooperatives, formed by African and Latin American migrant collectives respectively, and the Menjador ca la Rosa.
- We carry out the dissemination of advertising and marketing campaigns mainly in digital media, betting on the use of recycled paper and/or with certification for printed materials.
- We raise the need to donate surplus food or other materials to other entities with a social purpose.
- We are in the process of carrying out a study to measure the carbon footprint of the festival in order to establish compensatory measures in the medium term.
- We organize a series of debates, seminars, conferences and workshops related to the festival's main themes under the name Mostra'm. These conferences respond to the three values that we value across the whole project. Mostra'm programing has included the festival's commitment to sustainability in its content since its first edition
Newsletter
Subscribe to our newsletter
17-20 April 2025, Barcelona