Welcome to the Seeing Stars “Begone 2020” Bash!

What primordial god did we piss off to earn the year of 2020? DON’T KNOW, but let’s have a party to appease any and all eldritch beings!

What’s the reason for the bash? You never need a reason for a party, but 2020 FINALLY ending seems like a good one to me, so I’m rolling with it! There will be a veritable cavalcade of shows, prizes and special events to catapult us into 2021 in the style only pixel ponies have.

Get all the hot takes on this party below!


Earn Tickets & Points for Prizes!

Similar to our prior festivals and Most Wanted Competition, you will earn points for your horses’ placements and these will be recorded onto a visual leaderboard so everyone can keep track. However, there is a two-fold twist to the points – tickets and stable points.

For each show, you will earn tickets for your horses’ placements and you can trade those tickets in for a number of different prizes! There will be several different tiers, as follows: 5, 10, 20, 35, 50, 75, 100. The types of prizes you can earn per tier will vary, with the lowest tier as simple as SS cash or a small avatar of one of your petz, with jumps to custom show edits (showmanship or otherwise!), tack, custom hexies and all the way up to full blown custom art and restricted breedings to retired and out of service horses.

A maximum of 10 tickets will be given out to the owner of the winner of each show, with the rest of the owners earning 5 tickets each. Please note that even if you enter multiple horses in a show, you will ONLY earn your set of tickets ONCE – that means if you have a horse that wins and another that places second, you can only take the winner’s share of 10 tickets. If you have horses that place third and fifth, you will only earn 5 tickets, not 10 (5 for each placement). This is to make it more fair all around, and a higher incentive to enter more shows or improve your poses for each show – you’ll earn more tickets, which will earn you more and higher tier prizes!

In addition to tickets, you’ll also earn Stable Points – SP! The winning horse will earn 10 SP for their stable, whether it is in a normal pose/working show or in a TB race. Second place will earn 8 SP, third is 6 SP, fourth is 4 SP and fifth is 2 SP. But wait, sometimes you can enter more than one horse in a show. Does this mean you can earn SP from EACH horse entered in a single show? YES IT DOES! Unlike tickets, which will go to general prizes, SP is accumulated toward SPECIAL SUPER SECRET PRIZES and you’re going to want all the help you can get from your stable of horses to get you there. Each horse you enter and places in a show will earn SP toward your stable’s ranking, and the highest ranking stable at the end of the Bash wins!

There will be leaderboards keeping track of your SP as well! All shows listed above will contribute to your SP total, so it’s in your BEST INTEREST to enter as many shows and races as you can! There is no point cap for either tickets or SP – enter often and enter a lot of horses for your best shot to win tickets to redeem for general prizes or as a stable.

Does this mean all our stables are entering a huge forum-wide competition for SP? You bet your butt it does. This is every SSer out for themselves! This is inter-stable competition at its finest, and the best part is, you’ll reap some juicy rewards not just in ticket redemption, but a final prize that will be awarded to the winning stable at the beginning of the new year.


Prizes Out The Wazoo!

Do people say that anymore? I’m bringing it back.

In addition to earning normal points in these shows, you will also earn TICKETS to exchange for PRIZES! In the same scheme as our 2019 festival, there will be prize tiers on their own separate board exhibiting all possible prizes available. Please note, that the number of prizes WILL INCREASE as the party continues. This is because I will either have more time to create prizes OR more members may be willing to donate any of their talents to the prize pool. Make sure you check the prize boards often to see what has been added!

When you get a prize from the tickets board, the amount of tickets will be deducted from your total ticket total – exactly like when you buy a horse with SS. There is NO LIMIT on how many tickets you earn! Enter tons of shows and earn lotsa tickets!

But what about stables? That’s where the fun is! Sure it’s great your horse wins at a show type, but that’s not where the big bucks are. As a stable, you are in line to earn some great prizes and you will be spoiled for CHOICE. The Top 5 stables will be guaranteed certain prizes, donated by several of our lovely members but the top stable will have the ability to CHOOSE (within reason obviously, I mean, come on) of what kind of top prize they’re interested in – whether it’s special breedings restricted horses, hexes on restricted or limited breedfiles, artwork of their chosen horse or MORE. And all of this is FOR FREE! You will not lose stable points over the course of the Bash – these are PERMANENT points that ONLY count toward your year end-total in our inter-stable competition.

Enter ALL THE SHOWS!

For my own sanity and for organization’s sake, we will be dividing our shows two types of shows – pose shows and working shows! Don’t worry, they’re basically the same shows we have right now, just in two easy to judge packages.

Pose shows will consist of – Dressage, Halter, In-Hand, HUS, Reining and Western Pleasure. These are mainly judged on pose themselves and will consist of either no edits or very minor ones in the case of IH, HUS and WP. They will be judged the same way that normal pose shows are.

Working shows will consist of – Jumping, Eventing, Barrel Racing, Reining, Showmanship, Endurance Racing and Driving. These are shows that have the horse really “in action” and only Showmanship require heavy edits.

Thoroughbred racing will of course have its own board. You will still earn both tickets and SP in races, but ONLY on this board – if you enter races on the normal TB racing board, you will not earn tickets or SP in those events.

Remember, ALL SHOW POINTS earned in this bash will count toward your horse’s championship! Much like our previous festivals and bashes, this can be an easy and fast way to earn points for champing any of our horses, as I will try to get these shows judged in a timely manner so show rollover is quicker and there’s more opportunities to earn tickets and SP.

ANYONE can host shows! No matter who hosts, mod or member, you will earn tickets and SP for the leaderboards and points toward your horses’ championships. As long as you know the rules of the show you’re hosting, you can open as many as you like – just be sure to judge them in a timely manner!

For anyone that needs help on judging or posing, we will have a posing service open and a coaching service for anyone who needs clarification on show rules. Never hesitate to ask a moderator or an admin – or make a help post in our showing board! We also have a DISCORD channel so don’t hesitate to ask on there as well – I’m usually about and around lurking and will take DMs on there if anyone finds that easier.


BONUS Special Events!

In addition to normal pose and working shows, we’ll also be holding other events for members who may not be interested in fully showing their horses. Don’t worry, you’ll get Stable Points for these too!

Are you an artist or love to dress up your horses with tack and show edits? We’ll have a number of themed contests where you can show off your editing skills and win some general prizes in addition to earning tickets for our prize redemption board.

Or do you have the weirdest horse of them all and love to take photos? Photo contests that require no editing or posing will be open to everyone on the forum, with more chances to win tickets and more prizes!

If any other members have ideas for shows, GO AHEAD AND HOST THEM! Anyone can host a show, anyone can donate prizes – this is a forum wide bash, get in on it!

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Are you ready for this giant party to celebrate the end of 2020? Then go go go, earn yourself some tickets and SP and save up for some great prizes!