Sure, people love to come visit Lafayette for Festival International or Mardi Gras. But Lafayette’s culture doesn’t just drive tourism and quality of life, which is helpful for workforce recruitment and retention. It also makes Lafayette the kind of place that people want to do business in.
I’ve gotten more in touch with this hidden economic superpower through the production of Techneaux’s first SCADAPalooza user conferences. For the uninitiated, SCADA stands for supervisory control and acquisition. In our case, that means helping oil and gas companies manage wells remotely, and for this conference we brought in their representatives to meet our team.
Because this is Lafayette, when our guests came to town, we didn’t just serve them cold cuts. We threw down trays of boiled crawfish from Mo’ Crawfish, and one of our guys cooked a big pot of gumbo and étouffée. When we took them out to the camp to fish, we grilled up a pile of delicious seasoned meats from Nunu’s.
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As the Hilliard enters its third decade, the museum is showcasing its more than 2,000-piece permanent collection with vigor.
And because we wanted to make this event a celebration and not just the same old boring conference, we brought in some of Lafayette’s amazing musical talent: Lost Bayou Ramblers, Cedric Watson, Terry Huval.
We also knew that our guests were curious about the landscape in this part of the country, so we took anyone who got there early to McGee’s Landing for a swamp boat tour, complete with boudin and baby gators.
In short: we were able to give our guests a true cultural experience while simultaneously getting some serious business done.
Part of what makes this so remarkable is how easy it is to do in Lafayette. It’s not like we had to put on some really over the top production. We just had to share the cultural experiences that are available at our doorstep any given day.
And this wasn’t just fun — it was strategic. Because what it did was create organic opportunities to build community and trust with our customers. To not just export products, but a sense of place that they can connect to.
We’re not the first business to leverage this aspect of Lafayette’s culture. For example, Stuller, Inc., has been hosting its Bridge Conference for years, helping to build community among its jeweler customers — who all look forward to their opportunity to come experience Cajun Country.
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Local venues are losing audiences, musicians are losing gigs — and everyone is losing money, a census of the local music scene showed.
Sometimes it almost feels like Lafayette takes for granted that what is ordinary to us is extraordinary for most of the rest of the country. We don’t even have to put on a big show to impress people when they come to visit. We just need to do what we do.
And that’s arguably becoming even more true now that our local culture is having a bit of a moment in the national zeitgeist — with a 60 Minutes piece about our music and local culture, a Vice documentary about Cajun Mardi Gras and a Rolling Stones cover of a Clifton Chenier song.
The pandemic created a lingering sense of disconnection for many, leaving them hungry for authentic experiences and human connection. And those are things that Lafayette has long excelled at.
But to cash in on that, we have to continue enhancing our community’s capacity to facilitate these kinds of experiences.
For example, I’m personally excited about the progress being made on the Louisiana Music Museum. By creating a space like that, we don’t just showcase our culture, we actively enable its creation. The prospect of finally having a hotel to host guests Downtown is another step in the right direction.
Lafayette’s ability to pass a good time is not just fun, it can also make for good business.
