MOST days, the reception of the Mercure Grand Hotel in Leicester, England is a very formal affair. But on this particular October Saturday, clusters of adults wearing rainbow wigs, pony ears and sparkling tails give it a colourful and somewhat confusing air.

These adults are ‘Bronies’.

Taking their name from a combination of the words ponies and bro, hundreds of Bronies have flocked from all over the UK and Europe to the sold-out UK Pony Con, where fans of My Little Pony (MLP) gather to meet each other, buy merchandise, play games and dress up.

The children’s toys and TV shows have managed to capture a sizeable and committed adult following who go to extraordinary lengths to demonstrate their fandom. For an entire weekend, the hotel’s conference halls are dominated by adults, mostly men, dressed to resemble their favourite character from a show aimed predominantly at young girls. But why?

Proud Brony Tom Clay says he identified strongly with the show’s characters immediately, a trait shared by almost all of his fellow Bronies. But it was his first visit to an even larger English convention, BUCK, two years ago that made him a true Brony.

“Someone else came wearing a wig and tail and I got a hold of them and wouldn’t give them back. I wore them for the entire day and it felt good” said the 21-year-old, who also goes by the name Hurricane, after one of the show’s characters.

“After that I needed my own stuff, so I got some ears and wings for my second year of BUCK and it’s gone from there with the wig and everything else. I do get some funny looks on the street sometimes but at the end of the day you are who you are and if other people don’t like it, that’s their problem not mine.”

Originally screened in the 1980s, My Little Pony was once considered little more than a way to get young girls to buy plastic ponies from makers Hasbro. However, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (or Generation 4 as the Bronies refer to it) recruited Powderpuff Girls director Lauren Faust to act as creative director. She achieved huge and rapid success, among a much wider demographic than anyone imagined.

Adults, mostly men between 18 and 40, quickly started declaring their love for the show, mostly through Twitter, Facebook and fan forums. Many of these fans were also involved in other emerging internet-driven subcultures, including Cosplay and Furries. Cosplayers dress up as characters from their favourite comics or cartoons, while members of the Furries scene dress as animals — sometimes purely for fun and sometimes for a sexual thrill.

Stephen Knight describes himself as “on the edge of the furry community” and enjoys writing MLP fan fiction. His convention costume consists of a self-designed aluminium horse mask, complete with flashing lights, an orange boiler suit and a self-made jet pack (to fit in with the convention’s space theme).

He’s here with his wife Rosie, dressed in an MLP T-shirt. The couple are in their forties, not unusual in the tight-knit Brony community but Rosie says it can be a little awkward explaining their hobby to friends.

“We just say that it’s fun and you can take it at whatever level you like,” she said. “You can watch the cartoons for the stories and characters or you can write stories for children or adults.

“A few of them (the fan stories) do get quite dark and some of them get quite rude — particularly Clop, which we don’t do. There’s also Grim Dark ...”

Clop and Grim Dark are offshoots of the Brony scene. The former deals mainly in pornographic images and films of MLP characters while the latter, as the name suggests, trades mainly in the more depraved end of fan fiction.

UK Pony Con doesn’t really cater to those niche tastes, with many young children also in attendance, and most Bronies at the event say their hobby is increasingly welcomed by mainstream society. But for many, gaining acceptance has often been a tough path. Since their formation, Bronies have often been derided both on and offline as maladjusted social misfits, with their passion portrayed as a bizarre form of arrested childhood or a sexual kink.

Convention veteran Josiah Slight, dressed as a DJing pony and also known as Aqua Dash Monkey, is one of many who’ve had to take abuse in order to indulge their love of My Little Pony.

“My brother-in-law is a little judgmental about it,” the 21-year-old student said. “He generally thinks it’s only for gay people or weirdos and it’s just a phase. I think a lot of people think that way and you do receive a lot of hate and funny looks. But I’m doing it because I want to.”

Fellow Brony Adam Hussein, 27, runs a fan page and had to hide his identity online when he was the victim of attempted email hacks and efforts to get him sacked from his job. He has travelled to many conventions, including one in New York, and met his boyfriend through the online Brony community.

Dotted among the Bronies are some more ‘traditional’ fans of My Little Pony like Katie, aka DaffyDilly, who grew up playing with what are now called Generation 1 toys in the late 80s. At one point she had over 1000 in her collection.

She’s a member of the convention’s organising committee and part of the older generation of fans, many collectors, for whom the dozens of stalls selling ponies for upwards of $200, along with MLP tote bags, T-shirts and trinkets hold more appeal than the computer games, Cosplay contests and academic discussions from visiting professors.

Despite the differing desires of old and new fans, she says the MLP community, which has branches all over the world, is a united front.

“The fact is that they (Bronies) like the ponies for the show, whereas most of us (older fans) liked it for the toys,” she said.

“We like brushing the hair whereas they relate a lot more to the characters — the characters now have a lot more personality to relate to, which I think it why it became more popular.

“I’ve heard a few people today say that when I first saw that character, or that pony, I knew that they were the one for me. But what it boils down to is that everybody here just loves ponies.”