This time, we look towards India - a nation struck by the world’s biggest lockdown. With 1.35 billion people in the country - there’s bound to be a brony community there!
Abhiyaan SEAPonyCon is something like your usual online pony convention with live streamed activities and vendors ready to have a fun and exciting event right in our Discord server which you can join at http://discord.SEAPonyCon.com.
However, Abhiyaan SEAPonyCon is a little different. Let’s start with the activities and panels, known under our system as Harmony Six - we will be opening applications soon!
The schedule of the convention will align with Indian Standard Time or UTC +5.30. Yes, you read that correctly. Five and a half hours ahead of Greenwich Meridian Time. We don’t have a finalised schedule yet as we will craft this around our activity applications but when you apply, please be aware that if accepted your activity will get a slot that is within this time zone.
Second, Abhiyaan SEAPonyCon takes place in English - this is merely because it’s the common denominator and also one of India’s official languages. You are welcome to do multilingual activities but the base language should be in English so that we can have as many people as possible joining in for the fun.
Third, if you are presenting on a topic related to the Indian brony community, you will be given preferential treatment at Abhiyaan SEAPonyCon. We’re here to celebrate the Indian community and we want to give you the priority and the space to share it with the world too.
To ensure that it’s easy for our Indian friends to purchase your wares, you first have to make sure that you can accept Paypal as a form of payment. You are welcome to accept other payment forms so long as Paypal is one of them. You also need to open an Indian Rupee (INR) balance as your prices must be set in INR. We also ask that you set a rational price (rounded to the nearest 10 INR) for be friendly to potential buyers from India. You can also set a separate price in your preferred currency for your items.
Most importantly if you are selling physical goods, you must be able to ship to India - this is important as some countries like Malaysia have suspended overseas mailing services with the exception of couriers. If you need to use a courier service, please factor this in when calculating shipping.
The brony fandom is one that’s really global - with fans of the show in virtually every country across the planet. That’s why in 2018, Project SEAPonyCon launched Project Saffron - an initiative to connect with the brony community of India.
India has over 500 million people with internet access - which is more than the population of the entire United States. They also have 125 million people who speak English - which is more than the population of Canada and the United Kingdom put together.
We recognise that India has its own challenges that get in the way of being able to freely express oneself but that does not mean that they have to miss out on this wonderful community and all it has to offer.
With Project Saffron, success has been limited with only a handful of bronies responding. That’s why we want to give this a second try. Now that many of us are stuck at home due to second and third waves of the global pandemic, we want to see if we can reach out to more.
You can follow our updates at SEAPonyCon.com as well as our social media with the @SEAPonyCon handle on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram. Do join our community on D
iscord at http://discord.SEAPonyCon.com!
If you’re from India, hit us up right away! We would love to say hi! Tell your friends and help spread the message. We’ll see you at Abhiyaan SEAPonyCon!
