Lafayette Entertainment Initiative

Lafayette, Louisiana, a city of innovation and artistic expression has recently launched an Entertainment Industry Initiative to promote its viability as a prime destination for creative content production. Positioned as a forward-thinking, technologically advanced municipality, Lafayette is currently recruiting film, music & digital media production companies to participate in its development of next-generation infrastructure. Lafayette is distinguishing itself as a high-tech epicenter focused on smart growth and innovative economic development:

Louisiana Immersive Technologies Enterprise (LITE)
LITE, a $27 million, 70,000 square foot complex, is one of the most comprehensive and tightly integrated visualization and high performance computing installations in the world. Powered by graphic supercomputers enabling clients to visualize volumes of complex data, LITE?s capabilities and services bridge the gap in time and space between production studios, processing laboratories, and postproduction houses. LITE is exploring additional ground-breaking methodologies to service the entertainment industry while poised to respond to its immediate needs.

City-wide Fiber-Optic Connectivity to the Premise
Currently providing broadband connectivity to businesses over a 125 mile, 96 strand fiber loop, Lafayette is the first municipally-owned wired city in Louisiana, and with the launch of the Fiber to the Premise Initiative, Lafayette is becoming one of the most wired communities in the world. The initiative creates a viable infrastructure to sustain the robust demands of post-production companies to produce entertainment content and globally exchange data at bleeding-edge speeds from anywhere in our community.

High Definition Education & Training Programs 
Lafayette is producing a viable labor pool for film, music and digital media production. Industry-tailored curricula at Lafayette?s Community & Technical College campuses, as well as the University of Louisiana at Lafayette (ULL) offer entertainment career pathways utilizing commercially-compliant, high-definition camera, music, animation, motion capture and video game development resources.

Production Resources
Along with Louisiana?s, highly successful entertainment tax incentive package (Lafilm.org), Lafayette is prepared to accommodate your entertainment production needs with:

· 72 hotels / bed & breakfast inns and 17 new hotels in construction  
· 350 restaurants and eateries  and 82 catering services   
· 15 production service companies and talent agencies
· Regional airport and over 40 transportation services 
· Office & Warehouse-conversion space
 
We encourage you to contact our Entertainment Industry office so we can provide you with a customized assessment of our community?s resources.

Contact:
Marcus L. Brown              
Entertainment Industry Liaison            
705 W. University Ave., P.O. Box 4017-C
Lafayette, LA 70502
337.291.FILM (3456) | mlbrown@lafayettegov.net

International Digital In-Development EXPO
April 17-25, 2008
Lafayette, Louisiana

iDiDX is a digital media showcase that explores the intersection of entertainment, art, culture and technology.  iDiDX gives the opportunity for artists and content creators to pitch and exhibit their unfinished project.  Any project without distribution is considered unfinished.

For expo details, visit www.ididx.com.

Cinema on the Bayou Film Festival
May 26-30, 2008
Lafayette, Louisiana