Panorama medium, large prelims begin January 24, 29

Medium and large conventional bands will be warming up their sticks as preliminary judging for Panorama is set to begin on January 24 and 29 respectively.

The small conventional bands will wrap up on Saturday with the finals taking place at the Queen’s Park Savannah, Port of Spain, from 7 pm.

Shortly after that the judging for the medium and large bands will begin.

The medium preliminaries are scheduled to take place between January 24-28.

It begins with the judging of three bands and starts in the south/central region. On January 24, the judging begins with Point Fortin’s Tornadoes Steel Orchestra and then moves to Siparia Deltones and then to San Fernando’s Hatters.

On January 25, San City Steel Symphony, Pan Elders, Southern Marines Steelband Foundation and NGC Couva Joylanders – the reigning medium band champions – will continue the judging.

On January 26, it moves to Tobago with three bands and, on Friday January 27, seven bands from the northern region will be judged.

Eastern region medium bands will end the medium preliminaries with nine bands playing for a spot in the semifinals of that category.

Large band preliminaries will begin in Tobago on January 29 with two bands. It then moves to the south/central region on January 30 with five bands.

On January 31, seven large bands from the northern region will play for a spot in the semifinals of that category. The preliminaries then moves to the eastern region on February 1 also with seven bands.

Pan Trinbago’s vice chairman Keith Simpson said, however, that these were subject to change.

The organisation is celebrating Panorama’s Diamond Jubilee ie 60 years of the competition. It is expected to host a special event to observe its Diamond Jubilee on January 21 tentatively at Victoria Square, Port of Spain.