Gathering of the Juggalos promoters being accused of short payments, bad checks.

Yesterday, quite a few stories started surfacing about vendors at the Gathering of the Juggalos. In the midst of the bad press for Psychopathic Records this week, I wanted to wait until the story wasn't so one-sided, and give Psychopathic a chance to respond to the allegations.  That has happened, so let's tackle the subject. There are probably a dozen or so links that we have been sent, and all basically say the same thing: vendors haven't been paid for their services from last month's Gathering of the Juggalos.  Most of the articles stemmed from a story from TheSouthern.com, which is the local Hardin County newspaper's website.  You can see that article here:

Juggalos vendors report short payments, bad checks @ TheSouthern.com

I don't know if TheSouthern.com just couldn't wait to report more bad press for the Gathering or what,  but at least wait until the label who promotes the festival releases a statement about it!  MLive.com was a little more responsible about it, and included the following statement from Psychopathic Records about it:

The Gathering of the Juggalos is a 100% independent music festival with no corporate sponsorship and putting on a five-day music festival this ambitious is a very time consuming and expensive process. Unfortunately, in our attempt to provide the best possible event for our fans, expenses exceeded estimates and expectations, which we had not previously planned for. The company putting on the event, Juggalo Gathering, Inc., has no intention of turning its back on these financial obligations and is in the process of preparing a plan to take care of all vendors. We thank all of our vendors for their understanding.

You can read that full article right here.  That article, among others, had statements from one vendor who said that waiting this long was pretty standard protocol.  Others weren't so understanding. Now I know that attendance this year was lighter than usual, but being 14 years deep into this event, I'm sure all the details will be worked out on an individual basis. If anything else is reported about this subject, we'll be sure to let you know.  For now, you can see links to much of the subject's coverage below.