REPUBLIC Bank Exodus is the 2025 National Panorama large band conventional winner. The Tunapuna-based band won the title after an over 20-year drought.
Exodus' arrangement of Aaron “Voice” St Louis' Too Own Way earned 288 points at the Queen's Park Savannah, Port of Spain on March 1.
The band last won the competition in 2004 playing the late The Original De Fosto’s Pandora.
Manager Ainsworth Mohammed became emotional trying to explain how it felt to win after two decades.
He said to media following the results, “This is just fantastic. I was always positive.”
He said even though the band led the preliminaries and the semifinals, it was the finals that mattered. He could not verbalise what the win meant after 21 years with tears quickly filling his eyes.
“I know this time there was no way they could have stopped it.”
Rehearsals were the key to the band's win, he added.
The band plans to celebrate in many ways, he said.
Asked if the band could do it again in 2026, Mohammed said certainly and that there were plans to win for the next 21 years.
The 2024 joint winners bp Renegades and Massy Trinidad All Stars went separate ways. Renegades placed second with 285 points for its arrangement of Machel Montano’s Bet Meh. Its arranger Duvone Stewart rode in on a horse to illustrate Bet Meh. All Stars placed eight, also playing Bet Meh, with 279 points.
Exodus denied bp Renegades its dream of accomplishing a hattrick in the competition, having won in 2023 and 2024.
San Fernando’s Heritage Petroleum Skiffle Steel Orchestra received 283 points with its arrangement of Voice's Retro to place third.
First Citizens Supernovas Steel Orchestra’s version of Kes’ Cocoa Tea earned fourth place with 282 points.
There were ties in the sixth and ninth place which resulted in a strong reaction from the audience when results were announced shortly after 1 am on March 2.
Pan Trinbago president Beverley Ramsey-Moore said the ties indicated that the standard of pan was now so high.
The number of ties in the competition’s various categories generated public debate.
Ties could not be stopped as the judges did not know the results until it was announced, she told Newsday on March 2, after results were announced.
“What ties says to me is that the standard is extremely high. The judges themselves are finding it so hard to separate the bands,” she said.
Asked if Pan Trinbago might have to look at a new adjudication system, Ramsey-Moore said it was worth considering.
She suggested possibly using decimal points but that that was a decision for the entire pan body.
“What I know is that our system is extremely fair. Three scores are thrown out which is the highest, the lowest and then there is an alternate score.
“Then we take the average in the middle, the means score. It is a very fair system. So maybe the decimal point might help in situations like this,” she said.
Ramsey-Moore said Pan Trinbago had declared there is no season for pan and its constant events and work in panyards led to a resurgence.
