Jesse Ramdeo

Panora­ma 2023’s Di­a­mond Ju­bilee cel­e­bra­tion is be­ing dubbed the moth­er of all Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tions.

At Sun­day evening’s launch at the Massy Trinidad All Stars Pa­n­yard in Port-of-Spain, speak­ers recog­nised the im­por­tance of the na­tion­al in­stru­ment to the coun­try’s cul­ture and her­itage.

Pan Trin­ba­go’s pres­i­dent Bev­er­ley Ram­sey-Moore an­nounced that the sin­gle pan com­pe­ti­tion will kick off next week and urged pan en­thu­si­asts not to miss the ac­tion.

She al­so con­firmed the re­turn of the North Stand of the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah.

Ram­sey-Moore said the scale of next year’s com­pe­ti­tion and cel­e­bra­tion will be un­ri­valled.

Dur­ing her ad­dress, she stat­ed, “Long live Pan Trin­ba­go, long live Panora­ma, you are go­ing to have a fan­tas­tic time, we look for­ward to all of you com­ing out to give us your full sup­port be­cause there is noth­ing sweet­er than pan, we are the Mec­ca.”

Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts Min­is­ter Ran­dall Mitchell en­cour­aged the cor­po­rate sec­tor to lend sup­port to the art­form.

He said, “Come on board as spon­sors to the NCC and to Pan Trin­ba­go and to all those un­spon­sored bands, come on board and spon­sor what is per­haps the great­est in­ven­tion in the last cen­tu­ry for us here in T&T.”

Mitchell al­so paid homage to mem­bers of the steel­pan com­mu­ni­ty who suc­cumbed to COVID-19 and ap­plaud­ed Pan Trin­ba­go for as­sist­ing its mem­ber­ship dur­ing the fall­out.

Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion cor­po­rate sec­re­tary Giselle Mar­tin said with the world look­ing on, there is need to en­sure that the na­tion­al in­stru­ment con­tin­ues to be el­e­vat­ed.

She said, “As steel­pan stake­hold­ers, as pan afi­ciona­dos, cor­po­rate T&T it is im­per­a­tive that we work to­geth­er to en­hance this Panora­ma prod­uct that is tru­ly a sa­cred part of our na­tion­al iden­ti­ty.”

The crowd at Sun­day evening’s launch was treat­ed to per­for­mances from sev­er­al steel­pan groups.