At Insane Clown Posse concert, Florida woman slips on Faygo and falls off stage -- then sues Jannus Live

ST. PETERSBURG — During a recent Insane Clown Posse concert at Jannus Live, the horrorcore hip-hop duo known for wearing macabre clown makeup started spraying soda at the crowd.

Then they invited concertgoers to join them on stage.

Among the audience of fans, who call themselves Juggalos, was Sarah Hastings. As she joined in on the fun, Hastings slipped and fell off the stage, according to court records.

She is now suing the security company hired for the Feb. 18 concert and Knight Global Entertainment, doing business as Jannus Live.

Splashing Faygo, a soda popular in ICP's hometown of Detroit, at fans is a common staple of the band's concerts.

But a complaint filed in Pinellas County this week alleges that Jannus Live staff should have ensured that the floor "was not left in a slippery and dangerous condition."

The St. Petersburg-based agency Signature Security Services also failed to "correct the dangerous condition of an overcrowded stage by helping and assisting concertgoers over the barricades and onto the stage," records state.

It's unclear what injuries Hastings sustained, or why ICP isn't also named in the lawsuit. Her attorney, Darrell Kropog of Morgan & Morgan, declined to comment on Thursday. Jannus Live also declined to comment.

In an email, Signature Security CEO Jason Nosal said the company doesn't comment on pending litigation, but wrote: "The safety of all of the establishments we secure is paramount. All personal injury matters are investigated fully."

This is not the first time an Insane Clown Posse concert resulted in civil action. A Texas woman previously sued the group for tossing a 2-liter bottle of Faygo into her eye during a 2015 concert, according to a Daily Beast article.

According to the group's Facebook page, Insane Clown Posse "emerged from the darkness surrounding Detroit's underground music scene" in the early 1990s.

The group, composed of artists Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope, has a large following of fans who call themselves Juggalos, which comes from an ICP song called The Juggla.

Last month, a U.S. Court of Appeals dismissed ICP's 2014 lawsuit against the FBI that alleged the federal agency violated their Constitutional rights when it called Juggalos a "loosely organized hybrid gang" in a 2011 report.

The National Gang Intelligence Center report also noted: "Juggalos' disorganization and lack of structure within their groups, coupled with their transient nature, makes it difficult to classify them and identify their members and migration patterns."

In September, Juggalos marched at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., to protest the FBI's classification.

On her Facebook page, Hastings updated her profile photo in October with the words, "I'm a Juggalo, not a gang member."

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Information from the Washington Post was used in this report. Contact Laura C. Morel at lmorel@tampabay.com. Follow
@lauracmorel.