The genteel air of Washington DC’s national mall was disrupted by people in face paint and people keen to make America great again on Saturday afternoon. Hundreds of Juggalos – fans of the horrorcore rap group Insane Clown Posse – gathered to protest the FBI’s designation of them as a “gang”, while, nearby, hundreds of Donald Trump supporters gathered to cheer the president.

The Juggalo March had been planned for more than a year and drew music fans from across the US in a bid to change the group’s reputation.

Juggalos – their name is taken from an Insane Clown Posse song – were described in a 2011 FBI report as a “gang”, a label they said has led to discrimination from police and in the workplace.

The pro-Trump crowd, meanwhile, were assembled for a rally designed to give the president a signal of their support as Trump struggles through the early months of his first term.

Hundreds of Juggalos, many with their faces painted in the black and white style popularized by band members Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope, spent the afternoon in front of the Lincoln Memorial, at the west end of the national mall.

Insane Clown Posse fans were designated a “gang” in a 2011 FBI report, leading to discrimination, they said Photograph: Al Drago/Getty Images

With Abraham Lincoln’s giant statue looking on, Juggalos erected a stage and sound system and blasted hip-hop music as they chanted “family”, painted each others’ faces, and occasionally sprayed each other with the soft drink Faygo – a signature Insane Clown Posse move that some fans have described as a baptism.

Todd Okan, 35, said he was pulled over by police in Sacramento, California, because he had stickers of Insane Clown Posse’s “hatchet man” mascot on his car.

“They said these symbols are considered a gang symbol,” Okan said. “They were asking me, like: ‘Are you a leader of this gang?’”

Okan, an accounting auditor, said he was not in a gang.

“I was like: ‘This is the music I listen to’.”

A mile to the east, on the other side of the looming Washington Monument, the pro-Trump “mother of all rallies” was taking place.

The crowd for Donald Trump’s inauguration ceremony, held on the mall in January, was famously less than that for his predecessor – despite the president’s insistence otherwise – and the attendance at this rally was also smaller than expected.

A pro-Trump gathering was billed as the “mother of all rallies” but only about 400 people showed up

Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Organizers had promised that “thousands” of Trump supporters would be at the rally, but instead there were only around 400 enthusiasts. Given the events in Charlottesville in August, when a right-wing demonstration ended in the death of anti-racism activist Heather Heyer, there had been concern about the nature of the rally, but on Saturday afternoon all seemed calm.

The crowd gathered in a space the size of a football field on the lush grass of the mall, where they listened to sporadic pledges of allegiance and country music.

The supporters milled around amiably, some picnicking on the grass, others holding American flags aloft.

Tahnee Gonzalez, 31, was carrying a cloth banner that depicted Trump, holding an assault rifle, standing ontop of a tank which was firing its own weaponry. There was also an eagle on it.

Trump fans gathered to support the president as he struggles through the early months of his term Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Gonzalez had travelled from Phoenix, Arizona to attend the rally. She said she decided to come to “show the fake news that there is support for our president”.

“It’s America first now. We can no longer support any other country until ours is completely united and strong again,” she said. “I want my fellow millennials to know they need to rise up before it’s too late.”

There was little similarity between the Juggalo and Trump events – although facepainting was also available at the “mother of all rallies” – and with the distance of the Reflecting Pool between them, there seemed little chance of any crossover.