Kalistani Major History

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Kalistan Announced FOMAT XIV Date
Show set for weekend of July 1, 4902
Sulari, Suldanor
June 12, 4899

FOMAT returns to Kalistan, and the date is currently set for December 1, 4901 (OOC: Next Friday, Mar 5, at 5pm CST). This edition of FOMAT will be Kalistan's third time hosting the contest, and Organizers have decided to move the show to Sulari due to the possibility for Inclement weather at that time of year in Ananto. The show will be held at Sulari National Colosseum, site of countless concert and various other entertainment, and widely considered the center of Kalistani music, movies, and arts on the Mainland.

Submissions are opened and must be made by 11:59:59 pm CST on (Thursday, Mar 4) for them to be valid. Please post your submissions on the FOMAT site, and include a link to the song itself on the FOMAT page. Not including a link will not be disqualifying, but it is courteous to do so.

Once submissions are finished, voting will begin, and all votes must be in to the Contest judges, via DM on Discord or some other method no later than 4pm CST on the day of the show. Please rank the contestants with 1 being the best and whatever the other number is being the worst.

Scoring will be based on Kalistan's formula for scoring used in FOMAT XI: 70% of the final score will be an averaged score from the crowd, 20% will be the RPed score of Kalistani viewers, and 10% will be the averaged Judge scores. This ensures that the vast majority of the score is made up of votes from the audience, but Kalistani Judges will break ties and so forth.

Kalistan will be instituting a modified cultural rule from the previous two contests. Songs DO NOT need to be in the National Languages of Culturally Protected States. But the RL equivalents need to match. For example, Hutori's RL equivalent is generally agreed to be Anglophone Canada, so his Artist should be generally from Canada. This rule will be in place to ensure that there is cultural diversity in the contest, but contestants have a bit more latitude to select artists from their countries, rather than simply being forced to rely upon folk artists. There will be no penalty to doing songs which meet the National Origin Requirement, AND are in the National Language, but there will be no specific benefit to that either.

Kalistan also strongly encourages against using songs with overtly political or militaristic messages. Social messages in your music are acceptable, as long as they are not promoting racism or non-Kalistani Nationalism.

Judges for this edition will be Idris Olofuote, Kalistani Representative to FOMAT XII, who will be the main aesthetic judge, Frieda Marquez, chief Rock Engineer for LTD Records, who will judge the Technical ability of the performances, and Radio 1's very own Drivetime DJ Tali Armstrong, who will judge based on accessibility to an audience. Musicians are invited to be creative and skilled, but not so avant garde that the music is unapproachable to new listeners.

In addition, ARC Records will be on hand once more to record the Concert, with royalties for performance and publishing being distributed evenly to all competitors.

For those who arrive in the Republic Early, FOMAT XIV will provide tourism opportunities, as well as practice space, sound checks and work with expert sound engineers to ensure your mic cues and placement to make your band sound spectacular in an arena setting. The Colosseum is a unique acoustic environment which produces a different sort of sound than an amphitheater or a club. As a result, the Engineers we have on hand, who specialize in sound for this particular building, will make your set sound as good for the people in the back as it does for those in the front of the crowd, and will put your music in the light that you intended it to be in. Sound checks will begin the Monday prior to the contest, and Bands are encouraged to arrive early, so that placement marks can be gaffed and cues and levels can be brought in on the boards.

While you are not practicing or preparing for the show, also feel free to visit Sulari. No longer a hard scrabble center of heavy industry in Kalistan, Sulari is also the home to the Kalistani Movie Industry, as well as ARC Records and LTD Records. Sulari is now widely viewed as the center of Kalistani Culture on the Mainland, and its access to infrastructure allows for easy travel to all points in the Republic. An overnight trip can take you to Neveras, where you can take part in Winter Sports like downhill skiing one day, and then be back on the beaches the next day in Suldanor. There is excellent shopping for jewelry and high fashion in Sulari, as well as opportunities to engage in fine dining and dancing. The music scene in Dana, just an hour away by automobile, is considered the Hot Spot in Kalistani music right now, and clubs to go hear great music all up and down the Coast, from Yoshimi to Dana have live music every night.

We welcome the entire world to Kalistan, whether you are here for the Show, or just here for other stuff. Welcome to Kalistan and we look forward to hearing your entries.