CLEVELAND — The 2016 Republican National Convention has been a fraught time for the Republican Party, a painful rift instead of a triumph.

But on Tuesday night, a few minutes away from the Quicken Loans Arena, Donald Trump’s nomination was cause for unadulterated celebration. Here, some of Trump’s most passionate advocates — figures often relegated to the fringe — instead headlined a “Gays for Trump” party.

Dubbed the “WAKE UP!” party by organizers, guests were entreated to speeches from Dutch far-right politician Geert Wilders; Breitbart writer and (now-banned) Twitter celebrity Milo Yiannapolous; and anti-Islam activist Pamela Geller. (Geller’s was, she said, her first public speech since her Garland, Texas, appearance last year that was attacked by gunmen.) Notorious conservative writer Charles C. Johnson was in attendance wearing a Make America Great Again hat, as well as white nationalists Richard Spencer and Peter Brimelow. It took place in an anonymous ballroom at Cleveland’s Wolstein Center.

“I’ve worked on LGBT issues with Republican nominees since 2004,” said Chris Barron, one of the co-founders of the gay Republican group GOProud, who organized the event. “This is the most open campaign I have ever dealt with.”

“By the way, the Trump-Pence signs that are up here that are not even in the convention hall yet? The campaign had those on special order for us,” Barron said. “They wanted this event to go on. They were excited for this to go on.” Barron said he was an official surrogate for the Trump campaign.

GOProud was an early Trump adopter; the group was responsible for Trump’s first appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2011. Trump has cast himself as a defender of the LGBT community — one who is relatively agnostic on marriage — and he made a renewed round of overtures after the recent attack on an Orlando gay club. Tuesday's event was meant to be a LGBT-themed event. But the presence of open white nationalists like Spencer and Brimelow, plus the archetypical far-right European politician Wilders, highlighted other themes: populism, nationalism, ethno-centrism. The undercurrents that have made Trump’s candidacy so different from past Republican nominees, so marked Tuesday’s party.

“It’s really so good to be back again in America all week at the convention of what you call the Grand Old Party,” Wilders, who is visiting the convention this week as a guest of the Tennessee Republican Party, told the crowd. Like the other speakers, Wilders spoke behind a lectern sporting a Trump-Pence sign and in front of a wall covered in photographs of half-naked young men wearing Make America Great Again hats taken by “Twinks for Trump” auteur Lucian Wintrich. “I’m not American but don’t blame me if I say I hope that Donald J. Trump will win the election.” Wilders was accompanied by several bodyguards who escorted him out immediately after he finished speaking, and organizers said Wilders was part of the reason security at the venue itself was so tight (attendees were wanded before going in).