I do it regularly and during events where folks and objects are moving, too.
Part of the technique is to practice, practice, and practice some more. Visualize the scene and look through the camera and do a fast look-around through the viewfinder to get an idea of the best overlap and focal length. If you have a grid, so much the better--it helps with the overlap and with keeping the horizon somewhat aligned.. Shoot the camera vertically. Overlap 40-50 percent, especially with wide angle lenses. Longer lenses work with 15-25 per overlap. Your results will always vary. Sometimes, you'll need to shoot a second series of images to have plenty to stitch, perhaps using a different focal length.
So far, between Photoshop CS 5.5 & 6 and Autopano Pro, I can usually get something quite useable. Sometimes, I've got to distort the edges of the images and fill in missing edges, but for the most part, if you shoot a bit loose, you should have room to crop.
Some of the images I've done end up 50-60 and even 120 inches long, depending upon the lens used. The longer the focal length you shoot, the longer the pano. Shorter lenses give you more breathing room on the edges for cropping.
One of the panos I did at a dedication a few weeks ago ended up with about 20-25 frames and covered about 270 degrees. Shot it using about 28mm and camera hand held vertically. Final image was about 12x48 once cropped. Sometimes, with people moving, you've got to pull in a frame from the shoot to drop in to make sure the person isn't half-missing. In the dynamics where I shoot, that's one of the hazards and I deal with the stitching "error" as I find them.