THORNVILLE — It’s billed the “Shangri-La on Earth,” and, if you don’t mind the overflowing portable toilets and occasional stray Faygo soda can, you just might find it here.

“The thing about the Gathering of the Juggalos is, you may not like anything about it, but you cannot say it’s not interesting,” said Mike from Delaware, one of thousands who logged hours of travel time to get to Thornville in Northwestern Perry County to be at the annual carnival-concert extravaganza thrown for the delight of fans of hip hop duo Insane Clown Posse. The event opened Wednesday and runs through Saturday.

“You could take the all the guys that would be at an opera and bring them here, and I guarantee they would rather be here. I mean anybody could just sit here and watch for like three hours,” Mike said, as he took in a pole dance show emceed by a man in an elaborate clown getup who invited passersby to stop for “a free T-shirt with a lap dance or a free lap dance with a T-shirt.”

The Insane Clown Posse are known, in part, for their elaborate clown makeup, sometimes copied by their fans, called Juggalos (or Juggalettes if they’re females), but, on the opening day of this gathering, there was a sense that, paint and masks aside, most event-goers were making an effort to put on their best faces.

At the gas station across the street, “pleases” and “thank-yous” came quickly to the lips of the Juggalos who swamped the store Wednesday afternoon. On festival grounds, hugs were exchanged left and right and a spirit of charity was in the air, from the volunteers who manned a booth giving out free water and hotdogs to the tattooed masses, to those who paused their frenzied dancing to help a fellow Juggalo who’d fallen get back on his feet.

The good mood surely has a lot to do with the fact that many Juggalos consider one another family and look forward to the gathering all year — sometimes longer in the case of those who have trouble scraping up the money or the time off. This is the 15th year for the event, which features concerts, camping, carnival rides, and such attractions as a Faygo bottle propelling contest —ICP is known for spraying its fans with the off-brand soda, which has a cult following among Juggalos — and Juggalo Night Court, daily from 1:30 a.m. to 4 a.m., where grievances incurred at the festival are adjudicated with the audience as jury.

For some, it could also have something to do with the fact that they were relieved the gathering found a home this year.

“We were really excited Ohio didn’t back out on us, they gave us a chance,” said Maggie, a Juggalette who made the drive from St. Louis, Missouri, with four other fans and their weeks’ gear crammed into a Chevrolet Malibu. (They all made sure they wore their seat belts, as a any family might do, they said.)

After a seven-year run in Cave-in-Rock, Illinois, it was announced in February the event would be moving to a site nearer to the St. Louis crew: a campground in Kaiser, Missouri. But after an outcry from residents of that area who were worried about what kind of crowd and antics the gathering might draw, that deal fell through. Not long after, it was announced Legend Valley would host the 15th anniversary bash.

As to why the gathering left Cave-in-Rock, “There are always rumors,” Maggie’s friend Crystal, a four-year event veteran, said.

A couple of those rumors we heard during the day included that the venue severed ties with the event as the result of a deadly heroin overdose last year, or that it was linked to an episode in which a large group of Juggalos attacked a guy who got caught stealing from other festival-goers and destroyed his car.

A YouTube video purporting to be from the gathering two years ago shows spectators cheering as a driver in an SUV rams a badly banged up Pontiac. The fate of the driver is unclear, but there were rumors to be heard on the subject Wednesday. Adam, 25, of Indiana, said he heard around 100 people attacked the guy to teach him a lesson: Don’t steal from family.

“It wasn’t like that,” his friend Miles, 23, declared. “He says he got beat by 100 people? That would make us look pretty bad, if 100 people beat up on one guy. It wasn’t like that. They just chased him off.”

In addition to feeling bounced around, some Juggalos have bad tastes in their mouths over a court’s recent upholding of the FBI’s classification of their group as a gang.

Time and again, the word “family” was used Wednesday to describe the bond between Juggalos, although most qualified that, like most families, theirs is plagued by a few bad seeds.

“To lump us in with Bloods and Crips? That’s just asinine. I come from a gang-ridden city, and we are nothing like that,” said Chris, a member of the St. Louis group who rode in, in the Malibu. A horror-core artist himself, performing under the name Karney Slaughter, Chris said he’s heard of people losing housing and jobs and being targeted for traffic stops over their ICP and Psychopathic Record label apparel, tattoos and car decals.

The sometimes dark music, the face paint, he said, it’s all been done before, citing KISS fans and sporting enthusiasts as examples of the latter.

“You’re gonna die at a sporting event quicker than you’re gonna die here,” he said, adding that the scene gives many people a sense of belonging and a sense of home.

“There’s no Juggalo constitution. It’s a mindset and it’s a lifestyle.”

As night fell on the opening day of the gathering, which runs through Saturday, a pair of sheriff’s deputies who were patrolling the event said they were there basically to watch for fighting and make sure everyone was able to go home happy, not to harass anyone. Asked whether they’d yet seen any fighting episodes, they said there’d only been a few minor skirmishes.

Passing Juggalos thanked them for being “nice cops.” Yards away, the band Biohazard asked the crowd whether they’d ever experienced police harassment and invited those who had to raise their hands in a middle-finger salute and join them in chanting, “F— the FBI.” Most concert-goers participated enthusiastically.

A strange harmony, but a harmony nonetheless, this opening day of the Shangri-La on Earth.