What are your thoughts on the event? I enjoyed listening to all the bands and congratulate all the young pan musicians on their performances as well as their arrangers for their enjoyable music. Congrats also goes to the parents,supporters and organisers. The kids in costume were also great and thanks to Nostalgia steelband for their music to accompany the parade of the Mas bands.
Well done to all the kids. I didnt attend myself but I hear positive stuff. A special mention to David of Comets. Well done. I am sure you guys will progress well. I am hoping to bring Panash next year. regards all. Jason-Panash Steel Orchestra-uk
well done brent jason and co you have done so much this year as CSI..congrats junior panorama champions!
I have waited a while before making any comment but as no-one else has done so I think it is time to add my impressions of the day.
1. The bands to be playing were announced the day before on this site. They were Croydon Steel Orchestra, Comets Community and Caribbean Steel International. There was no mention of Ebony. Imagine the surprise to find that they were there. A bigger surprise was to find that they were competing. Three ladies standing behind me were chatting about it and I heard one of them say " Ebony are playing but they are not allowed to win anything because they didnt put their forms in". Another of them replied "Yeah, same old excuse". Then to find that they had players over the age of 18 and they STILL took second place. Am I missing something here?
2. One of the judges didn't turn up. Ok so it happens that sometimes things dont turn out as planned, but to ask the Mayoress to be a judge when she has no knowledge of the complexities of arranging, tuning and such like seems to me to be a little bit of an insult to the managers/arrangers who were involved. How was she deemed able to judge such things. As far as I can tell her only knowledge of pan is the fact that she uses a school in Swanley for her garden parties and other functions. You could have taken any of the audience and asked them to be a judge and they would have probably had more of an insight than she had.
3. The rumblings of 'foregone conclusion' were right. I heard it as well. It seems to be a well known secret that one of the high profile bands will be the winners. Croydon must have upset the apple cart last year.
4. I haven't heard yet whether any of the bands have had the scoresheets given to them. I think this should be done as a matter of course and also published on here. Then the judges could explain why they gave marks then crossed them out and awarded lower marks.
5. One of the things being judged was on appearance. Can someone explain how this works when one band was kitted out perfectly yet another had players in different t-shirts yet they got higher marks.
6. Perhaps it is time to get rid of judges and perhaps let the audiences decide. From the gasps of disbelief from the audience when the first result was announced, I believe that something has to be done to make these competitions fairer.
Lets not turn this, which should be an inspiration to young pan players, into a travesty.
Lets not let things go the way that Panorama has. My comments on this years Panorama will come later.