The following greatly contributed to the formation of the special intellectuality of the festival and the foundation:
• Intellectuality of Tatai Miska’s underground barber (Ginsberg, Nietze) in the seveties
• The New Symposium-Circle (from Vojvodina) free and open minded outlook on arts which was first able to mix the fossilized arts forms
• The new type of arts approach of Kiskőrőspuszta ’s commune building experiment
• The pursuit for original sources of vernacular culture. And the attemt to save it’s values while trasmitting it into novadays culture and modern arts.

The manifestations of the intellecuality before the festival are the following:

• 11 years of Jazz Studium magazine (1979-1990)

• The series of international jazz concerts in Győr (1982-1984), which were the first independent jazz concerts in Hungary. (Anthony Braxton, Roscoe Mitchell, Rova Saxophone Quartet)

• Film-photo-theatre-music camps (since 1991)

• The Roundtable in Ravazd, which validate the interests and pooled the manpower of the alternative or „parallel culture” in Hungary.

The MEDIAWAVE spirit has received a characteristic face in the last two decades and its mission and message behind became clear and obvious: acquainting and 'making available' the visual arts and jazz and ethno music in Hungary and abroad with the intention of community-creation, involving the youth, prompting people to make arts and awaking the need and demand for arts.