Aug. 17, 2001
 
 So. Wonder how many of Cas Taylor’s downstate, deep pocketed friends have made donations to his amphitheater at Rocky Gap? He’s going to need a boatload of cash from his friends downstate, because heaven knows the people of Allegany County can’t afford to pay for that thing.
 
 Mr. Taylor wants to build the amphitheater to end all amphitheaters. This monstrosity is projected to cost somewhere around $7 to $8 million. To date, the state has put about $3 million into the project. Mr. Taylor is claiming the rest will come through “donations.”
 
 Hmmm. Sort of sounds like the Speaker of the Maryland General Assembly is for sale, but what the heck.
 
 Assuming this thing is ever actually built, it will seat 8,000 people. That’s over 10% of Allegany County’s entire population.
 
 We have no idea where people will come from to fill this thing - we’ve heard of no feasibility study supporting its construction, seen no information regarding its ongoing operation. How will it support itself? Who will manage it? Where will the funding come from?
 
 To contrast Mr. Taylor’s folly with an amphitheater that makes sense, one need only look to our neighbor to the west. In Garrett County, officials there are also supporting the construction of an amphitheater. That amphitheater, however, will only cost a little over $1 million, and will seat a total of 1,000 people.
 
 The Garrett County theater is planned as part of the adventure sports complex going in near the lake. A white water racing course will surround the amphitheater, and the amphitheater will provide seating for the white water Olympic races if Baltimore/D.C. wins the Olympic bid for the 2012 games.
 
 To accommodate larger crowds, such as will occur with the Olympics, an additional 10,000 seats in temporary bleachers can be set up.
 
 The adventure sports complex, by the way, will be a $250 to $300 million project when it’s all said and done. And - get this - 95% of that money will come from private investments. Only 5% will come from public coffers.
 
 Private investment. Imagine that.
 
 It’s interesting that Garrett County, with its existing tourist industry that brought the county approximately 800,000 visitors in the year 2000, and generated approximately $175 million in revenue that year, only needs an amphitheater that seats 1,000 people. It makes us wonder exactly what Mr. Taylor is planning to have at his amphitheater on a regular basis - the Rolling Stones? The Oprah Winfrey Show? What?
 
 Seating for 8,000 is a whole bunch of seating. Where are the people going to come from to fill this thing? And fill it often enough that it generates enough revenue to support itself? Right now, Allegany County’s tourist industry is, well, pretty pathetic. We’d like to tell you how many visitors we had last year, but no one seems to know. Jerry Hess, the former head of our tourism bureau, claimed earlier this year that we had 670,000 overnight visitors in 2000. He backed off that number after some people did the math and noted that 670,000 people would mean 12,884 people per week, or 1,835 people per day.
 
 I think we would have noticed that many people wandering around.
 
 Garrett County - an established tourist destination - would never think of building an amphitheater seating 8,000 people. Why? Because they expect their projects to be self-supporting.
 
 In Allegany County, we’ve never heard of such a thing.