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The crowd in the Blaisdell Center’s Pikake Room Tuesday night was boisterous and, even in person, the atmosphere had the sheen of a television production.

The room was brightly lit, the stage adorned with tropical plants and podiums, a make-up artist bustled through the crowd with a compact of powder in one hand. The four candidates present — Kirk Caldwell, Peter Carlisle, Panos Prevedouros and Rod Tam — wore crisp suits, and were draped with extravagant lei.

One of them will be elected mayor Saturday. For the others, the Hawaii News Now debate was a swan song, the last chance they had to publicly envision the next two years in Honolulu under their direction.

The sense of urgency was palpable, and some used the opportunity better than others.

It’s not that they wanted the job any less 12 hours before, but the evening debate was a significant contrast to the mayoral debate that started their day.

Earlier Tuesday morning, three of those four candidates — all but Caldwell, whose campaign declined to detail what they characterized as a schedule conflict — gathered downtown for a joint appearance on Rick Hamada’s KVHV radio show for a two-hour debate sponsored by Civil Beat.

The set for Hamada’s show, which was streamed live on the web, was arranged to be like a living room, and candidates sat with panelists (this reporter, and Civil Beat Editor John Temple) for what was designed to be a little bit of a free-for-all. The idea: Get them out from behind the podium, and maybe they’ll get past the stilted rhetoric that inevitably dominates political debates. To some extent, it worked.

Sure, Panos Prevedouros still found the opportunity to call the city’s rail plan “baloney,” Carlisle evoked murderous imagery to convey the gravity of the city’s federally mandated multi-billion dollar sewage upgrades, and Tam compared himself to former Honolulu Mayor Frank Fasi. Voters had heard all of that before.

But they also heard the mayoral candidates wade into unfamiliar territory, which was less the case in the later televised debate. Peter Carlisle, for example, talked about how he’s focusing on managing his quick temper. Panos Prevedouros was the only candidate willing to definitively state his position on gay marriage (he’s against it). And in a rare moment of succinct articulation, Rod Tam explained that even the best qualified mayoral candidate will fail at the job if he can’t treat his colleagues with respect.

A couple of barbs were thrown, but they were easy ones: Carlisle ribbed Prevedouros for being professorial, Prevedouros firing back with comments about lawyers and politicians.

It wasn’t until 12 hours later, in a building named after a man who once had the job they want, that the jabs became pointed. In front of a live audience of a few hundred people — each candidate got 100 tickets to distribute to supporters but there were empty seats — candidates reiterated their messages and challenged one another with varying degrees of bite.

Carlisle used the time allotted for an opening statement to dispute claims in a negative advertisement paid for by Caldwell.

Caldwell later asked Carlisle about his pay raises over time, and criticized him for being imprecise about the related timeline.

“You seem to want to talk about the facts,” Caldwell said. “But you want to run away from the facts you don’t like.”

Some other moments to remember:

• Mayoral candidate Khistina DeJean walked onstage unannounced, and was escorted away by security.
• Panos Prevedouros graded Mufi Hannemann on his mayoral leadership, saying, “I think his biggest mistake was his focus on the rail… with a little reluctance, I would give him a B-minus.”
• Tam called the city’s property tax structure “out of whack.”
• Caldwell on rail: “We’re going to build this and we’re going to finish it by 2019.”
• Carlisle told Prevedouros to accept that Honolulu voters agreed on a 2008 ballot question to support rail, saying, “You didn’t follow the procedure to challenge that vote. You’re telling us the will of the people means nothing to you, and that ain’t America, thank God.”
• Prevedouros criticized Carlisle’s reasoning with regard to the city’s proposed rail project: “As a lawyer, you should be ashamed of yourself.”
• Caldwell on the burden on the public from the city’s compliance with a federally mandated sewage consent decree: “We’re looking at sewer fees for paying part of that. Fees could go up 3 to 5 percent every year.”
  • Prevedouros touted his worldliness to Caldwell, saying, “cultural diversity, something that you won’t be able to understand.”
• In a rebuttal, Caldwell answered: “I’ve been to Greece it’s a beautful country, so I’ve been at least to your homeland.”
• Tam on political attack ads: “If you have nothing nice to say, don’t say anything.”
• Caldwell mentioned the Honolulu Star-Advertiser’s endorsement of him no less than three times.

By the end of the evening debate, the mayoral candidates had covered little new ground. They didn’t delve deeply into the issues that will face the newly elected mayor. But they did remind voters that they’re in this race to win it — less than four days and counting.