Indeed, the 100-plus steel pan orchestra readying itself for panorama is both a visual, acoustic and music phenomenon that every human should experience live at least once in their life time.  It displays the indomitable and creative spirit of man. And moreover in terms of craftsmanship, theatrics, musicianship and showmanship they have been second to none.  Groups like Desperadoes, Renegades, Phase 2 and All Stars, in Trinidad, and Pantonic and Marsicans, in New York routinely field these large steel orchestras for their respective steelband panorama competition.  The Trinidad event is the equivalent of the Super-Bowl of all steelband competitions which are held throughout Europe, North America and the Caribbean.

For years many have complained, that, while steelpan musicians have from almost the inception of the steelpan instrument, performed on a world-class level, the Super-Bowl event (Panorama) that showcases these marvelous musicians and magical instruments - has lagged behind in terms of presenting a world-class show that is equal to the pageantry and performance of the performers.

In an attempt to improve the entertainment content value and overall product last year,  Pan Trinbago (producers of the steelband event)  instituted some revolutionary changes into the annual steelband music panorama competition show.  Those rules include categorizing of steel orchestras into small, medium and large groups and the reduction in the performance time of the competing orchestras from the previous standard of 10 minutes to 8 minutes.  This reduction was done as a means of shortening the overall length of the show, which in the past at times had gone into the wee hours of the morning.  The result was the audience losing interest and patience.  When Steel Talks monitored last year's show at the Panorama finals and took a close look at the performance times and data related to the 2004 event.  When Steel Talks  found that the medium band competition took 2 hours 32 minutes to complete, and the large band category took 3 hours and 8 minutes in their cumulative performances, for a total Panorama finals show time of 5 hours and 40 minutes.  WST sees this as great for a show of this magnitude and logistic complexity. 

Now while some have complained that shortening the performance time (from 10 to 8 minutes) impacts on the creativity and musical output, one has to admit that it made a better show overall.

Now can someone fix the live sound at the show...  And, oh, can there PLEASE be a world-class quality CD and DVD of the proceedings...