Citace:Hello, everypony!

While there are many cons taking place around the world, Czech Republic is quite unique. We have “Festival Fantazie” which is the largest multifandom con happening in Czech Republic. You can meet many fandoms there. Starting with Star Wars, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings to Harry Potter, Twilight, Game of Thrones or Bollywood. There is even a lot of program for Dance Dance Revolution, Guitar Hero, Karaoke, or video games of all sorts. I’d dare to say it’s comparable with ComicCon in its range of interests. There’s also lot of additional program like Orclympics, random dancing and singing on the streets and so on. But this year was the first time ponies emerged. And we made it in big style!

The festival itself lasted for 9 days, starting on 28. June and ended on 7. July. And the last 4 days were in the name of ponies. But let’s look at few earlier days. We had many amazing cosplayers and that, of course, draws attention. For many con visitors it was their first encounter with ponies. But luckily these people are very open, but also crazy in their own way. But not very surprisingly we were laughed at, so we decided to take part in the toughest competition of the Festival – Orclympics. First was drinking of beer. Few bronies took part and two of them actually made it to the second and third place In the finale. Ponies are tough too! And then there was Orcball. It’s a game very similar to rugby, but with only two rules:
1. Don’t eat the ball
2. Don’t eat the judge.
And bronies made a team! And to the surprise of many they won the third place. These events really helped us in proving that ponies are serious business!

On the evening before the Pony program started, we had a Gala evening. And to our big surprise, Russian band Przewalski’s Ponies arrived in Czech Republic to play there. They were a lot of fun. And before the Gala, they even got the idea to take chalk and draw on the pavement, so quickly the whole area of Festival Fantazie was covered with ponies. The Gala evening was also the grand opening of the very first My Little Pony Con on Festival Fantazie. There was a short introduction and then the concert started. It was an amazing experience, because many of us never actually heard brony music live. After the concert, a party quickly took place with well-known pony songs and also loads of brony music. It lasted till 3AM. Party hard Pinkie pie style.

The next day, the pony program started. Every morning started with an hour-long screening of the show and then there were presentations, panels, workshops, competitions and even a charity auction. Presentations and panels were various – about physics in Equestria, music, Source Filmmaker, videos, fanfictions, other cons, cosplays, cider, Trotmania, but also about bronies themselves since many visitors of Festival Fantazie had no idea, who bronies actually are. Workshops were lots of fun too, for example How to create your own parasprite, Music workshop (in which Przewalski’s Ponies took part too), Artistic workshop or Karaoke (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vy0UHxrvp0).

But nothing lasts forever and the Festival ended on Sunday 7/7/2013. The last day were panels until 1PM. The last one was about the Con itself and we discussed some ideas about next year and about next conventions. We also showed some photos from the whole convention and in the end the last thing we watched was Great to be different. Quite fitting for the occasion. Then there was a group hug and all the bronies then said goodbye, put posters on their cars and went home. It was really great con, full of ponies and friendship. But we all look forward to the next time!