SAN­DRA L BLOOD

When the cur­tain ris­es at 7 pm to­mor­row at Skin­ner Park, San Fer­nan­do, for Lega­cy—the Na­tion­al Panora­ma Small Band Fi­nals—16 steel or­ches­tras will take the stage, ready for in­tense ad­ju­di­ca­tion in one of the fes­ti­val’s most keen­ly con­test­ed cat­e­gories.

Among the fi­nal­ists are the reign­ing joint 2025 cham­pi­ons, To­ba­go’s T&TEC New East Side Di­men­sion and Trinidad’s Gold­en Hands Steel Or­ches­tra, along­side the band that topped the 2026 pre­lim­i­nar­ies and semi­fi­nals, South­ern Stars Steel Or­ches­tra, for­mer­ly known as D’South Band.

De­spite the with­draw­al of spon­sor­ship from sev­er­al bands and from Pan Trin­ba­go it­self for this year’s Panora­ma Fes­ti­val, Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent Bev­er­ley Ram­sey-Moore and her re­gion­al ex­ec­u­tive lead­er­ship re­main res­olute that the show will go on—big­ger, bet­ter and brighter.

“Spon­sor­ship is not a per­son­al favour, but a demon­stra­tion of cor­po­rate so­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and a so­cial and eco­nom­ic in­vest­ment in com­mu­ni­ty build­ing and sup­port for at-risk com­mu­ni­ties,” Ram­sey-Moore said.

She em­pha­sised that steel­bands func­tion far be­yond mu­si­cal per­for­mance. “Pa­n­yards are class­rooms, safe spaces and ex­tend­ed fam­i­lies that nur­ture dis­ci­pline, cre­ativ­i­ty and re­silience among young peo­ple.”

Ram­sey-Moore not­ed that spon­sor­ship sus­tains a wide cul­tur­al ecosys­tem, ben­e­fit­ing arrangers, in­stru­ment mak­ers and man­u­fac­tur­ers, tuners, pan rack builders, uni­form de­sign­ers, trans­port providers, culi­nary pro­fes­sion­als and lo­cal ar­ti­sans. “The loss of spon­sors af­fects not on­ly mu­si­cians and pan­nists, but the wider so­cial fab­ric—re­duc­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for youth de­vel­op­ment, cul­tur­al par­tic­i­pa­tion and healthy com­mu­ni­ty co­he­sion, while lim­it­ing the con­tin­ued growth of the steel­pan lo­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.”

In­dus­try ob­servers and de­vel­op­ment spe­cial­ists re­gard the Small Band cat­e­go­ry as a crit­i­cal pil­lar of steel­band ad­vance­ment. They de­scribe it as a tran­si­tion­al space that strength­ens mu­si­cal ma­tu­ri­ty, ex­pands op­por­tu­ni­ties, en­hances promi­nence, and plays a vi­tal role in en­gag­ing youth and steer­ing them away from neg­a­tive in­flu­ences.

At­ten­tion now turns to the Na­tion­al Ju­nior Panora­ma pre­lim­i­nary rounds, with the 19-and-Un­der cat­e­go­ry sched­uled for Jan­u­ary 8–11, and the Elite 21-and-Un­der cat­e­go­ry run­ning from Jan­u­ary 8–13. The Ju­nior Panora­ma Fi­nals will be held on Jan­u­ary 18 at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain.

Ram­sey-Moore ex­pressed grat­i­tude to part­ners who have come on board, con­grat­u­lat­ed the fi­nal­ists, and ex­tend­ed ap­pre­ci­a­tion to the steel­band fra­ter­ni­ty, sup­port­ers and pa­trons for their con­tin­ued com­mit­ment to the art form.

Panora­ma Small Band Fi­nals

Ad­mis­sion: $150

Tick­ets avail­able at Pan Trin­ba­go Head Of­fice, 55 Dun­don­ald Street, Port of Spain (US cur­ren­cy ac­cept­ed), or on­line at pantrin­ba­go.co.tt (US$25).

Pay-per-view: US$25 via pantrin­ba­go.car­ni­valtv.cloud

Or­der of Ap­pear­ance

Fu­sion Steel Or­ches­tra

Tokyo Steel Or­ches­tra

First Cit­i­zens To­ba­go Pan-Thers

Fas­ci­na­tors Pan Sym­pho­ny

Road Block Steel Or­ches­tra

Ply­mouth Bethes­da Steel Sen­sa­tion

Ari­ma Gold­en Sym­pho­ny

Pana­son­ic Con­nec­tion Steel Or­ches­tra

South­ern Stars Steel Or­ches­tra

West Stars Steel Or­ches­tra

T&TEC New East Side Di­men­sion

Tu­na­puna Tipi­ca Steel Or­ches­tra

Gold­en Hands Steel Or­ches­tra

Al­pha Pan Pi­o­neers

Up­town Fas­ci­na­tors Steel Or­ches­tra

Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force Steel Or­ches­tra