'Intimate setting' is fine for county, but should bring in more shows

Editor:

Several weeks ago I happen to be returning a book to the library when I saw a friend going to the library after hours. I asked what he was doing and he told me that Cynthia Douglas had a concert at the library. I had heard nothing about this, and Douglas is a former Augusta artist that we had always enjoyed. My daughter and I rushed home and got my husband and we went to the concert.

We bought the tickets for the series of three Celtic concerts and enjoyed all the music tremendously.

We noticed that each concert had more and more people attending. We were pleased but surprised because we didn't see much in the way of advertising. Actually, the only ad I remember seeing was in the Georgia Natural Gas bill and that was for the last performance.

I understand that the "Music Man" was a big success but I have heard nothing about another show.

Now that Columbia County has this wonderful facility it should be in use frequently. The nice advantage is that the size of the theater makes the performance more personal.

Also the quality of the performers and the reasonable price of the tickets should encourage more and more people to come to the theater.

I know that Columbia County is thinking of building an arena to bring in big-name shows, but not all of us can afford the big-name tickets. Also, I like a more intimate setting rather than plowing through the mobs of people at a big-name show. I like the comfortable feeling of seeing my neighbors at a show.

Perhaps Columbia County should nurture this facility before they think about spending millions on an arena. We should develop a good solid base of theater-goers who support the arts in our area. We have an amazing number of artists in our area and now we have an amazing facility to showcase this talent. Let's put the two together and create an ideal home town experience.

Lorinda Fournier

Evans