More than a week after the Gathering of the Juggalos ended, we have reached my penultimate update. Later today or tomorrow I will get up the last post which will have links to all of my coverage as well as a huge gallery of images, and then we can move on with our lives. But I have a pretty good one for you before we get to that.

The last night of the Gathering of the Juggalos ends with a set from the Insane Clown Posse. For the 20th anniversary they played one song off of every album and EP they have ever released, ending with a song off their upcoming album, ironically titled Be Safe. During that song a small group of juggalos set a couch or two on fire in the middle of the crowd. Juggalos love setting off fireworks in crowds, and they love burning shit, so they might as well burn some shit in the middle of the crowd.

After ICP was over the fire was going pretty strong so I ran over there to take photos. People started carrying over picnic tables and grabbing chairs and really anything they could to throw in the fire. Eventually security ran over to put it out, but juggalos just started throwing shit at them and as soon as they ran out of extinguishers the juggalos started the fire up again. 

There was a good mix of reactions of juggalos to this because juggalos contain multitudes. You had the juggalos actively involved in the fire on one hand, and the ones yelling at them to put out the fire on the other. In the middle you had juggalos just resigned to them being juggalos “fucking juggalos” one said while shaking their head. “I guess we won’t be back here next year” was a comment I heard several times. At one point people just started chanting “We fucked up! We fucked up!”

Eventually shit got even worse when juggalos started throwing fireworks and eventually propane tanks into the fire. At one point a commercial grade firework shot out of the fire and exploded feet from a juggalo who didn’t even flinch. Others around him jumped out of a way like it was a hand grenade, but this one motherfucker just stood there taking it all in. I started laughing so hard I was crying and had to lay on the ground. In the very last picture below (but not the last picture in the gallery) you can see something explode in the fire which sent a juggalo flying. He was somehow fine but was nearly trapped under the picnic table he was carrying at the time. It was quite the scene. 

I of course used the opportunity to do a little photo booth and after I shot Khloe Kapri and a few other friends in front of the fire I had juggalos lined up to take their picture in front of it. It was pretty entertaining and I stuck around for a while, but eventually it was clear that this fire was never going to be put out, and it was going to become this Eternal Flame that was carried from Gathering to Gathering by juggalos with torches so I decided I had to finally leave.

As I was walking out of the Gathering I saw fire trucks lined up, but they weren’t entering. Juggalo journalist Camille Dodero told me later that the fire department didn’t enter the grounds because they viewed the juggalos as a threat to their safety which is a little silly because juggalos wouldn’t hurt them, but they sure as hell would throw some Faygo at them. Whoop whoop.

Click here to see all the photos from the insane bonfire from the 20th Gathering of the Juggalos.

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