Despite the well-documented under-reporting of sexual violence, to date, no research has considered reporting practices within the specific context of music festivals. Drawing on 16 in-depth interviews with victim-survivors, this article examines survivors’ experiences of (non)reporting sexual violence in festival settings. We argue that while some barriers to reporting are shared across contexts, others play out in context-specific ways. Our research argues that the liberal, often transgressive culture of music festivals, combined with site-specific policing practices and spatial context, creates unique impediments to reporting with particular implications in responding to, and aiming to prevent, sexual violence at music festivals.
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