See You At The Wedding

It's Acadiana: Out to Lunch

Running a business is usually an exercise in multitasking. Whatever your one real gift is — that thing that got you into business in the first place — there’s a pretty good chance you won’t be doing it anymore once you’ve become successful enough.

That can be bittersweet. But it’s the way of the world. So it would make sense that what often separates good operators from great operators is the ability to do lots of different things well.

Sometimes it’s better to be a jack of all trades, especially when you’ve got a lot to do. Take the music business. It’s never enough to be proficient at an instrument. At some point, you gotta manage your act — get booking done, promote it, advance the show logistics, arrange rehearsals, setlists, egos, riders, the whole nine.

That gets much more complicated when you’re in a wedding band. You’re the soundtrack to someone’s special day. So the stakes are high. That’s why wedding bands can command top dollar. It’s a smart business. But a tough one. Especially if you’re like Matt Cobb and play 110 gigs a year.

Matt runs two different groups — Rouge Krewe and Parade Route. And, yes, he runs them. Besides bringing the hype to your cousin’s wedding or your aunt’s company Christmas Party, Matt is doing the books and managing the when, where and how of his band’s hectic schedule.

He started RougeKrewe in 2019 after graduating from UL with a degree in music education. The band got to be so in demand, that they couldn’t fill all the bookings. So he started a second band: Parade Route.

Matt and his bands spend most of their time playing in Louisiana, but they’ve been booked out of state and abroad. Wherever they go, their motto is “We don’t just play music. We bring life to the party.”

If playing hundreds of gigs sounds exhausting. Try managing properties. It’s easy to get spread thin in the development business, and it’s one of those industries that you learn by doing, not in business school.

Ravi Daggula has been connected to several high profile developments in Lafayette. He got his start flipping residential properties after college and cutting his teeth in hospitality by working at a hotel. He got into historic revitalization with Maison Mouton, a restored Creole manor he converted into a bed & breakfast. It gave him the bug for more ambitious development projects, so Ravi kept at historic preservation concepts. Today his portfolio of properties are gathered under the banner of Belle Vie Hospitality.

Ravi is originally from India and moved to Lafayette to get a degree in computer engineering. He thinks of himself as an impact investor and looks for projects that will have value that extend beyond the property itself, and its return on investment.

Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.

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