“We have 19 acres of land in our parks, we had plenty of room and we decided it was time to put up another structure that would house this summer concert event for the foreseeable future,” said Ted Chapman, president of Waynesburg Lions Club.

Chapman explained the park has been around since the 1960s and has received some upgrades over the years, such as a playground for local children and a community building which is used as a meeting structure. This growth is continuing, as the club built an amphitheatre to add to the parks’ event capabilities. 

The reason behind this new building is for the community’s Sounds of Summer event series, which begins in June and continues throughout July. The bands will play from 5:30-7:30 p.m. Tuesday evenings. 

“We’ll usually have eight to nine groups from in and out of town.” Chapman said. 

When the club first started the event, the concert would be held in one of the pavilions. It was not big enough, however.

Chapman said he likes the event as it makes the Lions Club visible to the public eye and gives them an idea of what the organization can do.  

“We determined that that was working with about 75 to 100, 10, 15 people every Tuesday night and has been well received by the community. It is a free concert, there is no charge. We realized we needed a little bit of a different application, or building to really bring this to light,” he said.

In doing this, the organization visited other groups and determined that an amphitheatre was the right structure to add.

“We looked in the area, we went north, south, east and west to that partner with the municipalities and built amphitheatres,” Chapman said.

With this building, more people will be able to attend the event as it can house more visitors who may or may not have to bring lawn chairs, as visitors sometimes had to bring in previous years, explained Chapman. Additionally, it could add more musical groups to the event.

“The layout of the park was just not conducive for a crowd of say, 200 people,” he said. “We appreciate the situation in its present form in a pavillion, it was time to bring something about that would make it easier to let the community to come in and listen to see during concert season.” 

Chapman hopes the amphitheatre will entice more people to attend the Waynesburg Lions Club Sounds of Summer event series next year.  

“We knew if we wanted to grow this bigger we would have to ‘pony up’ and make it more appealing. We had to kind of  ‘pony up’ and build a bigger structure for this event,” Chapman said.