A heavy po­lice pres­ence guid­ed thou­sands through Port-of-Spain on Sun­day night, as steel­pan lovers moved from pan yard to pan yard for the North Zone Panora­ma Pre­lim­i­nar­ies.

The famed “pan crawl” be­gan at Des­per­a­does Steel Or­ches­tra on George Street, start­ing lat­er than the sched­uled 7 pm time and con­tin­u­ing un­til near­ly 1 am.

From Des­per­a­does, the crowd moved to Panora­ma 2024 cham­pi­ons Massy Trinidad All Stars at Neville Jules Junc­tion, Duke Street, then on­to last year’s joint cham­pi­ons BP Rene­gades on Char­lotte Street, where a large screen had to be set up be­cause of the mas­sive turnout of sup­port­ers and spec­ta­tors.

Judg­ing pro­ceed­ed at Nu­trien Sil­ver Stars on Tra­garete Road be­fore In­vaders per­formed at the Queen’s Park Oval in­stead of their pan yard. The tour then head­ed to Phase II Pan Groove on Hamil­ton Street and con­clud­ed at Pro­man Star­lift on Christo­pher Samuel Dri­ve.

Some bands did their best to en­ter­tain pan lovers, with All Stars end­ing their per­for­mance with con­fet­ti, while Rene­gades opt­ed for fire­works.

Six maxi taxis trans­port­ed judges, VIPs, and dig­ni­taries, in­clud­ing Min­is­ter of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts Ran­dall Mitchell, Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Kei­th Scot­land, For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne, Hous­ing Min­is­ter Camille Robin­son-Reg­is and To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine. Speak­er of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Bridgid An­nisette-George was the on­ly pub­lic of­fi­cial ob­served keen­ly tak­ing in the events at every venue.

Yes­ter­day, judg­ing con­tin­ued at First Cit­i­zens Su­per­novas in Sur­rey Vil­lage, Arou­ca, fol­lowed by Re­pub­lic Bank Ex­o­dus on East­ern Main Road, St Au­gus­tine. Tonight, judg­ing moves to the south­land, be­gin­ning at Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um Siparia Del­tones on Rail­way Road, Siparia. The “pan crawl” will move through NL­CB Fon­claire in San Fer­nan­do, Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um Skif­fle on Cof­fee Street, and T&TEC Trop­i­cal An­gel Harps in Ch­agua­nas.

The pan sides will com­pete in the Na­tion­al Panora­ma Medi­um and Large bands se­mi-fi­nals at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah on Sun­day (Feb­ru­ary 16).

The fi­nals will take place on Car­ni­val Sat­ur­day (March 1).