More than $25 mil­lion in prize mon­ey was dis­trib­uted to over 150 steel­bands at Pan Trin­ba­go’s Cham­pi­ons Prize Dis­tri­b­u­tion cer­e­mo­ny, where Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young pledged con­tin­ued sup­port and a per­ma­nent home for the na­tion­al in­stru­ment if re-elect­ed. Min­is­ter of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts Min­is­ter Ran­dall Mitchell praised the gov­ern­ment’s part­ner­ship with Pan Trin­ba­go and hint­ed at fu­ture venue up­grades for Panora­ma events, fol­low­ing record-break­ing crowds at the 2025 se­mi-fi­nals.

“In fact, I am look­ing for­ward to the next cou­ple of years af­ter I come back in­to of­fice on the 28th of April. I look for­ward to be­ing able to join you at your an­nu­al award cer­e­mo­ny right across the road, where the gov­ern­ment is com­mit­ted to build­ing a per­ma­nent, mod­ern-day home for the steel pan and your move­ment, Pan Trin­ba­go,” he said.

Young urged cor­po­rate Trinidad and To­ba­go to in­crease their in­volve­ment, stress­ing that sus­tain­able growth re­quired pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ships.

“That ex­tra mon­ey Bev­er­ly is ask­ing for , hold on. Be­cause I’ve said I will be re­spon­si­ble. We won’t put the gov­ern­ment in a po­si­tion where it can’t pay its bills,” he added. “Cor­po­rate Trinidad and To­ba­go must an­swer the call.”

Min­is­ter Mitchell cel­e­brat­ed the mile­stone.

“To­day is tru­ly a good day for pan men and women. Over $25 mil­lion in prize mon­ey and re­mit­tances are be­ing dis­trib­uted to our steel­pan play­ers — a tes­ta­ment to the hard work, ac­count­abil­i­ty, and part­ner­ship be­tween the gov­ern­ment and Pan Trin­ba­go,” he said.

Mitchell, ac­knowl­edg­ing the po­lit­i­cal cli­mate, ap­pealed to at­ten­dees to weigh their choic­es care­ful­ly.

“I am a politi­cian, and yes, I would like to come back in­to of­fice. But I want you to think crit­i­cal­ly — not about emp­ty promis­es, but about lega­cy. Ask your­self what was re­al­ly done for the steel­pan move­ment be­fore 2015 and com­pare that to what we’ve built to­geth­er since.”

He high­light­ed the cre­ation of Pan Trin­ba­go’s new head­quar­ters as ev­i­dence of the gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to the art form.

Mitchell al­so cel­e­brat­ed record-break­ing at­ten­dance at Panora­ma 2025, not­ing that near­ly 40,000 peo­ple turned out for the se­mi-fi­nals alone.

“The crowds were mas­sive — up to 40,000 peo­ple for the se­mi-fi­nals alone,” he said. “We saw peo­ple in the drag, the grand­stand, the greens, and the North Stand, and that doesn’t even ac­count for those who couldn’t get tick­ets but want­ed to join us.”

He ac­knowl­edged cur­rent venue lim­i­ta­tions and out­lined plans to ac­com­mo­date larg­er au­di­ences in the fu­ture.

“Per­haps in 2026, we need to re­think the lo­gis­tics. We may need to ex­pand the space or con­sid­er in­stalling large screens so that peo­ple can en­joy the event even if they don’t have a di­rect view of the stage,” he said. “We could ex­plore build­ing a sta­di­um or even mov­ing in­to the na­tion­al sta­di­um. These are the good prob­lems to have.”

Mitchell en­cour­aged ear­ly tick­et pur­chas­es for Panora­ma 2026 to en­sure spec­ta­tors se­cure their place at the ever-grow­ing cul­tur­al event.