MostraRespect

Mostra is a space of respect where all expressions and identities are welcome. Inclusivity is one of the festival’s three pillars, and that is where MostraRespect comes from: the space dedicated to promoting respect, diversity and pleasure within the festival, with the aim of preventing and reducing the risks of gender-based violence, both among attendees and among the people working there. Every year, we draft a report to help us settle the bases for the next edition’s action plan, regarding tangible initiatives.

On the festival days

MostraRespect is present as an awareness team during the festival days since its first edition in 2022. Our team is staffed by professionals specialised in the prevention of and response to gender-based violence in nightlife and substance-use settings. But it is also present the rest of the year, on social media and through different activities, because we understand MostraRespect as a living project that requires constant reformulation in order to adapt to the reality we live in.

The protocol

Since 2022 we have produced our own protocol to prevent and respond to sexual violence and LGBTIQA+phobia, which we review and update every year. Unlike other protocols, ours takes into account the context of drug use from a gender perspective: as an unavoidable reality of festive environments, it pays particular attention to the unequal readings of substance use from a feminist standpoint. Its legal framework covers not only the law on the comprehensive guarantee of sexual freedom but also the law on the real and effective equality of trans people and the guarantee of the rights of LGBTI people.

Within the festival’s production, MostraRespect translates into concrete decisions. We produce our own signage using the festival’s visual identity, stating clearly and visibly what kind of space Mostra is and which forms of violence are not permitted, at the entrances, on the dancefloor and in the toilets. Recognising toilet areas as flashpoints, we reserve portable urinals or fixed toilets for the exclusive use of FLINTA* people. And we have hosted the information stands of Sexus, Energy Control and Nectar Spectra in order to break taboos and provide free information on sexualities and drug use, because managing pleasure from a gender perspective is fundamental to preventing violence.

Journeys and closing times call for particular attention. During the years we programmed at the Castell de Montjuïc we ran buses back from the festival gates to the city centre and collaborated with Fem Taxi Barcelona, a company committed to a women’s taxi service in the city, to offer safe journeys. As an alternative to road transport we created #TornemJuntes, an initiative designed so that women and dissident identities can go home together and walk accompanied by MostraRespect staff at the end of the festival, because the streets belong to all of us.

No Callem

Since 2023 we have been signed up to Barcelona City Council’s No Callem protocol for addressing gender-based violence in nightlife settings, and since 2024 we have been part of its working group to improve the protocol for festivals, which allows us to raise challenges and share good practice with other projects in the city. To reinforce that training, in 2023 several members of the team took part in a training session run by Observatorio Noctámbulas on the prevention of and intervention in sexual violence in festive and drug-use environments.

Beyond the festival

Beyond the festival days, MostraRespect has taken this work to many other places. In 2022 we presented the documentary ‘Underplayed’, on gender inequality in the electronic scene, at Centre Cívic La Sedeta as part of the In-Edit programme in collaboration with Barcelona Districte Cultural, and later took part in the debate following its screening at Centre Cultural Albareda alongside Artista o Musa, Musa Platform, Musical Sisters Vinyl and DJ Owey. In 2023 we attended the first congress ‘A cross-cutting look at nightlife from a gender perspective’, organised by the Sot a Terra collective in Valencia; our gender specialist spoke at the third Vermut Feminista on 8 March, an initiative driven by the Comehome community; and in November we joined a focus group for research by Observatorio Noctámbulas, commissioned by the Catalan government’s departments of Feminism and Culture, to produce a guide on preventing and repairing gender-based and LGBTIQA+phobic violence in the Catalan cultural sector.

In May 2024 our gender specialist spoke at the tenth Jornada Noctámbulas, ‘Protocols for addressing sexual violence, drugs and partying: what have we learned?’, alongside Sala Apolo, Observatori contra l’Homofòbia and Sot a Terra, sharing the ease, the problems and the challenges of implementing protocols in private and self-managed nightlife. And in December of that same year, as part of our ExtraMostra with Konvent.0, MostraRespect delivered a training session on sexual and LGBTIQA+phobic violence in festive spaces, and together with our host project we built a collaborative protocol and its signage for the occasion, from the ground up.

The Mostra’m sessions have been another place where this commitment has become programming: the round table with Observatori contra l’Homofòbia in 2022, the presentation of Asociación MIM’s second gender study in 2023 and Magui Dávila’s workshop in 2024, as well as the open calls for women artists and dissident identities under thirty for the ExtraMostra events at Espai Jove la Bàscula in 2023 and Centre Cultural Albareda in 2024.

Sot a Terra, since 2026

In 2026 we strengthened MostraRespect with the addition of the Sot a Terra collective as the festival’s care team. With extensive experience in support and violence prevention in nightlife and electronic culture settings, their work brought a feminist, community-based perspective focused on reducing the risks and harms associated with substance use. All these actions are under constant evaluation: we gather indicators during the festival — reports on dark zones, reports on interventions carried out, the conflicts measured, the assaults suffered and an audience survey — we hand over between team shifts, and we run an initial briefing with bar, cleaning, security and technical staff to reinforce coordination. Open to proposals and collaborations, we continue working and learning in order to reduce the risk of violence at Mostra.