It’s Time for the Annual Gathering of the Juggalos.
The 16th annual Gathering of the Juggalos is now underway at a venue called Legend Valley in southern Ohio. And as usual, this promises to be the weirdest summer music festival of them all. The Daily Beast takes a look.
THORNVILLE, Ohio—Fuckin’ concert logistics, how do they work? And really, who cares?
Thousands of Juggalos, most of them clutching tickets to the Gathering of the Juggalos, stood in a muddy line for six hours Wednesday in a withering summer sun waiting to get their wristbands. Some had held tickets for months, yet were forced to wait in an endless line for the wristband that proves they have that ticket in order to get past the hallowed gates of Legend Valley, the concert shed in southern Ohio that is hosting the 16th annual Gathering.
While that sounds like a dose of physical hell with a pinch of overall frustration—yes, it was—there was no fighting. No shoving. Juggalos, including a group formed just for such a mini-crisis, the Scrub Care Unit, passed out water to each other, held places in line (no cuts), and overall treated each other like family.
“Yea, that’s exactly what we are, one big dysfunctional family,” explained a muscled guy who looks like a Living Colour outtake, only with a slim patch of purple and yellow hair atop his otherwise shaved head. He said his name is “Freekshow,” and you’re inclined to believe him since it’s stenciled across the back of his red, short-sleeved bowling shirt that reached below his knees. It was his 10th time to hit the Gathering since 2001. “For us, we have the Gathering, which is like Woodstock meets Sodom and Gomorrah,” he said. “And this is something, today, that we get through together.”
