Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent Kei­th Di­az says this year's Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion will be an ex­cit­ing year for steel­band and will lead to the in­tro­duc­tion of Panora­ma as an in­ter­na­tion­al pan com­pe­ti­tion in 2014.

Though Di­az di­vulged lit­tle de­tails about the event, he said com­peti­tors could be­gin reg­is­tra­tion as ear­ly as March 15.

This year's com­pe­ti­tion al­so will see a change on the fi­nal night as the usu­al prize-giv­ing, which takes place on the night of the fi­nals, will be post­poned to an award cer­e­mo­ny on Feb­ru­ary 22.

An­oth­er change is that there would be no more ac­cess from the North Stand, Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, to the North­ern Greens area dur­ing the se­mi-fi­nal of the com­pe­ti­tion on Jan­u­ary 27.

Those an­nounce­ments were made by Di­az and Pan Trin­ba­go vice pres­i­dent By­ron Ser­rette yes­ter­day at the Sa­van­nah dur­ing a news con­fer­ence to dis­cuss the 50th an­niver­sary of Panora­ma this year. The pan com­pe­ti­tion be­gan in Feb­ru­ary 1963.

Ser­rette said the ac­cess change from the North Stand to the North­ern Greens was one ofthe mea­sures be­ing used to deal with se­cu­ri­ty dur­ing the com­pe­ti­tion.

Last year, po­lice and se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cials stopped pa­trons from cross­ing over to the greens from the North Stand be­cause it was over­crowd­ed.

This re­sult­ed in pa­trons break­ing down the fence to gain ac­cess.

This year, Pan Trin­ba­go hopes to elim­i­nate a re­peat by mak­ing the space in the "Greens" big­ger.

Ser­rette said Pan Trin­ba­go had con­sulat­ed with stake­hold­ers, in­clud­ing var­i­ous pa­tron groups or "poss­es".

He said the or­gan­i­sa­tion had re­ceived crit­i­cism over the "Greens" from pan lovers.

Ser­rette said de­spite mak­ing al­lowances for non-pan lovers, the en­tire space was a steel­pan space.

"We must give them the op­por­tu­ni­ty to come in­to a steel­band space. Even­tu­al­ly they will be the au­di­ence in the Grand Stand in the fu­ture," he added.

Ac­tiv­i­ties on "The Greens"

Ser­rette said: "The Greens" space will be widened and length­ened to ac­com­mo­date be­tween 15,000 and 20,000 peo­ple."There will be screens and speak­ers in 'The Greens', broad­cast­ing the en­tire com­pe­ti­tion."

This year's prize mon­ey

Large bands:

First place: $1 mil­lion.

Sec­ond place: $700,000.

Third place: $650,000.

Fourth place: $600,000.

Fifth place: $550,000.

Medi­um bands;

First place: $600,000.

Sec­ond place: $550,000.

Third place: $500,000.

Fourth place: $450,000.

Fifth place: $400,000.

Small bands:

First place: $400,000.

Sec­ond place: $350,000.

Third place: $300,000.

Fourth place: $250,000.

Fifth place: $200,000

Feb­ru­ary 22 was the date of the first pan fi­nals in 1963.The cel­e­bra­tion of 50 years of pan has been ded­i­cat­ed to the mem­o­ry of Bertie Mar­shall, an icon in the pan fra­ter­ni­ty. Mar­shall died last Oc­to­ber.