Most pan lovers would al­ready know that bpTT, one of the coun­try’s largest earn­er of for­eign ex­change, has been long con­nect­ed to the bp Rene­gades Steel Or­ches­tra, the reign­ing Panora­ma cham­pi­ons and win­ners of three of the last four it­er­a­tions of the com­pe­ti­tion.

How­ev­er ahead of this year’s com­pe­ti­tion, which was held yes­ter­day, the com­pa­ny con­firmed it would be the ti­tle spon­sor of Panora­ma.

“BpTT’s ti­tle spon­sor­ship of Panora­ma 2024 builds on the com­pa­ny’s long-stand­ing sup­port for the Na­tion­al Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tions and wider sup­port for T&T’s na­tion­al in­stru­ment. BpTT and Pan Trin­ba­go have en­joyed a fruit­ful re­la­tion­ship span­ning decades, with the com­pa­ny pro­vid­ing vary­ing forms of spon­sor­ship sup­port for the Na­tion­al Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion,” said bpTT, in re­sponse to ques­tions sent by the Busi­ness Guardian.

The com­pa­ny said there was no con­flict of in­ter­est in it spon­sor­ing the Na­tion­al Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion as well as a steel­band par­tic­i­pat­ing in the com­pe­ti­tion.

He said, “There is no con­flict of in­ter­est as we are not in­volved in the ad­min­is­tra­tion or op­er­a­tion of Pan Trin­ba­go or the ex­e­cu­tion or ad­ju­di­ca­tion of their var­i­ous com­pe­ti­tions, nei­ther are we in­volved in the ad­min­is­tra­tion or op­er­a­tions of the bp Rene­gades. While we have spon­sored both or­gan­i­sa­tions, they make their de­ci­sions un­der the guid­ance of their own board of di­rec­tors and man­age­ment with­out in­volve­ment of bpTT—how­ev­er, we are con­sult­ed when­ev­er our brand/lo­go is be­ing used.”

BpTT said its in­volve­ment as a spon­sor is part of pre­serv­ing the cul­ture of pan in the coun­try and was not tied to grant­i­ng an ad­van­tage to Rene­gades.

The com­pa­ny ex­plained, “The stag­ing of large scale na­tion­al and cul­tur­al events can­not be sole­ly fund­ed by the State and for this rea­son cor­po­rate spon­sor­ship of these events al­lows them to be af­ford­able and ac­ces­si­ble to the pub­lic. BpTT in spon­sor­ing the na­tion­al Panora­ma events was sim­ply hop­ing to sup­port our cul­tur­al tra­di­tions and cer­tain­ly not at­tempt­ing to cre­ate an un­fair ad­van­tage for a world class steel band that needs no help to win ti­tles.

“BpTT has a long his­to­ry of sup­port for both Pan Trin­ba­go and Rene­gades, which we have spon­sored for 54 years and we have sup­port­ed Pan Trin­ba­go’s Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tions for decades. Bp Rene­gades have proven them­selves as one of the most suc­cess­ful steel­bands, hav­ing won 12 times. In the past four com­pe­ti­tions they have been crowned cham­pi­ons on three oc­ca­sions, all based on their per­for­mances.

“Pan Trin­ba­go is bet­ter placed to speak about the com­pe­ti­tion, in­clud­ing judg­ing process and cri­te­ria,” said bpTT.

bpTT said, “It should be not­ed that there is a his­to­ry of cor­po­rate en­ti­ties spon­sor­ing Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tions while be­ing af­fil­i­at­ed to steel bands in the com­pe­ti­tion and bpTT is not the on­ly cor­po­rate spon­sor in the 2024 Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion with a spon­sored steel band al­so com­pet­ing. There have been many years in the past where bpTT has spon­sored the com­pe­ti­tion where the bp Rene­gades has not won. We are con­fi­dent that Pan Trin­ba­go will de­liv­er a qual­i­ty Panora­ma event with fair re­sults and may the best band win.”

Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent Bev­er­ly Ram­sey-Moore said that it was not the first time a spon­sor of the Na­tion­al Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion al­so spon­sored a band in the com­pe­ti­tion.

“It is not a con­flict of in­ter­est. Not at all. It is not the first time bp has been a spon­sor to Panora­ma, that has been hap­pen­ing over the years. And we have sent out pack­ages to a num­ber of cor­po­rate bod­ies through­out Trinidad and To­ba­go with sev­er­al scopes, such as ti­tle spon­sor­ship, gold, pre­mi­um, bronze and for us, for­tu­nate­ly, bp came on as a ti­tle spon­sor. It’s noth­ing new,” Ram­sey-Moore said.

The en­er­gy com­pa­ny con­firmed that the spon­sor­ship fund­ing will con­tribute to­wards the cost of host­ing the var­i­ous pan com­pe­ti­tions.

“BpTT’s spon­sor­ship of the Na­tion­al Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tions is gov­erned by a con­trac­tu­al agree­ment be­tween bpTT and Pan Trin­ba­go, which sets out the terms and con­di­tions of the spon­sor­ship in­clud­ing re­port­ing re­quire­ments,” said the com­pa­ny, adding that “this spon­sor­ship is not ad­di­tion­al to, but forms part of, the 2024 cor­po­rate re­spon­si­bil­i­ty bud­get which in­cludes al­lo­ca­tions for spon­sor­ships that are aligned with our com­pa­ny strat­e­gy.”

The com­pa­ny, how­ev­er, would not re­veal the over­all val­ue of the spon­sor­ship to Busi­ness Guardian.

“We would pre­fer Pan Trin­ba­go to an­swer any ques­tions about the ti­tle spon­sor­ship terms,” it said.

Pan Trin­ba­go, how­ev­er, has ex­plained that it would still be re­spon­si­ble for the prize struc­ture of the com­pe­ti­tion, which will once again see the win­ner of the large band cat­e­go­ry win­ning $1 mil­lion, with sec­ond place pock­et­ing $700,000, third $650,000, fourth and fifth $575,000 each while sixth and sev­enth would re­ceived $500,000 and $450,000 each. The re­main­ing fi­nal­ists earn $400,000 for an over­all sum of $6 mil­lion for the large-band cat­e­go­ry.

Medi­um bands have a prize pool of $3.9 mil­lion with the win­ner tak­ing home $600,000, and with each fi­nal­ist guar­an­teed $250,000. Small band win­ners earn $400,000, but each is guar­an­teed $100,000 as fi­nal­ists.

In 2023, Pan Trin­ba­go paid out $14.2 mil­lion in prizes. While they re­main re­spon­si­ble for this pay­out as part of the sub­ven­tion from Gov­ern­ment.

Ram­sey-Moore was thank­ful that bpTT’s spon­sor­ship has come to off­set ad­min­is­tra­tive costs.

“Af­ter Car­ni­val, no­body thinks that Pan Trin­ba­go has to man­age its af­fairs on its own. We do not re­ceive a sub­ven­tion from Gov­ern­ment out­side of Car­ni­val ac­tiv­i­ties, so for six months a year we have to pad­dle our own ca­noe, and no­body looks in. But you are look­ing in now be­cause you want con­fu­sion and bac­cha­nal,” Ram­sey-Moore said in an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia last week.

“So when spon­sors come in, it brings in ad­di­tion­al rev­enue to the or­gan­i­sa­tion to man­age its af­fairs and to in­vest in all 300 steel­bands for the rest of the year. Who gives them any­thing else af­ter Car­ni­val?” she asked.

The com­pa­ny said for the 2024 Car­ni­val, it grasped the op­por­tu­ni­ty to be­come ti­tle spon­sor of the Na­tion­al Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion, with dis­cus­sions be­gin­ning as far back as Oc­to­ber of 2023.

“Our spon­sor­ship re­flects our con­tin­ued con­fi­dence in Pan Trin­ba­go and en­ables the steel­pan move­ment to cre­ate mem­o­rable ex­pe­ri­ences for the pub­lic and for vis­i­tors to our shores. BpTT is mere­ly a cor­po­rate spon­sor of the event and is not in­volved with the plan­ning or de­liv­ery of the Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion.”

Apart from the Panora­ma spon­sor­ship, the com­pa­ny al­so part­nered with Pan Trin­ba­go for the “Pan Around D Clock” ini­tia­tive which was ini­tial­ly planned to be a per­for­mance space in the Sa­van­nah op­po­site bpTT’s head of­fice. How­ev­er, the plans were re­worked fol­low­ing crime con­cerns, with the space be­ing moved to the John Cu­pid Car­ni­val Vil­lage.

The en­er­gy com­pa­ny not­ed that the steel­band plays a sig­nif­i­cant role in the wider com­mu­ni­ty apart from the nights of com­pe­ti­tion.

It said, “bpTT is a proud spon­sor of the event giv­en the trans­for­ma­tive role steel­bands play in the lives of the play­ers, their fam­i­lies and the com­mu­ni­ty with­in which they re­side. BpTT is hap­py to part­ner with Pan Trin­ba­go and by ex­ten­sion the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go for this unique cul­tur­al art­form.”

The com­pa­ny ex­plained that bpTT’s de­ci­sion to spon­sor Panora­ma in 2024 was not un­com­mon, as it had thrown its sup­port be­hind the com­pe­ti­tion for many years pri­or.

“BpTT has been a long-stand­ing sup­port­er of the Na­tion­al Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion and has spon­sored the com­pe­ti­tion for sev­er­al years, in­clud­ing the 2023 com­pe­ti­tion. Our spon­sor­ship through­out the years is root­ed in our ap­proach to Cor­po­rate So­cial Re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and the be­lief that the steel­band move­ment can con­tribute to im­prov­ing the well-be­ing of play­ers, their fam­i­lies and the com­mu­ni­ty alike.”

How­ev­er, it not­ed that the ap­proach to spon­sor­ship would be eval­u­at­ed on an an­nu­al ba­sis.