Around 75,000 people live in Walton County. That’s the same number of people who live in a beachside city in France, called Cannes.

There are 85 other cities in France the same size as Cannes, but you probably couldn’t name them. You know about Cannes because it’s home to the world’s most prestigious film festival.

It costs Cannes around $6m a year to stage the festival. Its economic impact to the city is around $200 million. And the festival generates around one billion dollars worth of film industry business.

What if we had a film festival here? That’s the question Kevin Elliot asked. Kevin is a film maker and the owner of film production company, Wewa Films. And he’s the founder of the Redfish Film Festival: a festival of documentary films in Panama City that had its world premiere in 2024.

The reason a lot of us love living in this part of the world is the natural beauty of the place. And the advantage of living in a community that’s small enough to navigate, without the stresses of big city living. On the other hand, when the sun goes down we’d like to be able to enjoy the kind of nightlife that typically comes with a larger population. For example, comedy clubs.

Jason Hedden has solved the population vs comedy club conundrum by having no comedy club and a whole bunch of comedy clubs at the same time. Jason’s comedy company, Panama City Comedy, produces standup comedy shows, not at a single comedy club but at a wide range of different locations up and down the panhandle.

You got a pizza restaurant? A bar? A theater? An oyster shack? You want Panama City Comedy to stage a show at your location? No problem. This business model has been making people laugh, and making Jason money, since 2019.

Entrepreneur of the Week

This week's Out to Lunch Entrepreneur of the Week is Daniel Henderson. Daniel lives in Panama City and he’s the co-owner of a company called BFG Productions.

BFG stands for Boogie Funk Groove and was originally a band. Now it’s much more than that. Now BFG books gigs for other bands and for DJ’s, and arranges all kinds of entertainment. Daniel describes himself as a secret weapon in the local entertainment business, working quietly behind the scenes to make events happen.

Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Farm & Fire restaurant on Highway 331, overlooking Choctawhatchee Bay. Farm & Fire is one of Chef Jim Shirley’s family of fine restaurants. It’s open from 4pm, 6 days a week, and from 11am for brunch on Sundays.

You can find photos from this show by Brandan Babineaux at outtolunchemeraldcoast.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you live in a small community and you have big ideas, you have two choices. You can move to a city with a population large enough to support your dreams. Or you can stay home and try and make the impossible happen.

If you're a theater actor and you'd like to appear in a Broadway musical or a professional production of playwrights like William Shakespeare and Tennessee Williams, you could move to New York, Chicago or Los Angeles. Or you could do what Nathanael and Anna Fisher did and found the Emerald Coast Theatre Company.

In 2013 Nathanael and Anna had a traveling troupe, performing wherever they could find a suitable empty space. Then in 2016 they moved into their now permanent home, on Grand Boulevard in Miramar Beach. Today Anna is Emerald Coast Theatre Company’s Associate Artistic Director, and Nathanael is the company’s Producing Artistic Director.

If you love music - from classical to jazz and funk to punk - and you want to go to a record store like you’d find in the East Village in Manhattan, on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, or the French Quarter in New Orleans, you could pack a bag and go traveling. Or, you could do what Tom King did.

Following the blue-sky “Field of Dreams” business model –“Build it and they will come” - Tom opened Central Square Records in a space above Sundog Books in Seaside. That was 2003. Today, Central Square Records is a destination for music lovers who visit here from places like Los Angeles, New Orleans and New York.

Our Out to Lunch Entrepreneur of the Week is Connie Prather.

Connie was a CPA – otherwise known as an accountant - for large companies and corporations before she decided to walk away from doing the books for big business and focus on clients with small businesses. Today she has a one-person accounting and bookkeeping business based in Panama City Beach called Coastal Accounting.

We all have great ideas. How many times have you been sitting around with friends or family and one of you says, “You know what somebody ought to do?...” The difference between successful people and the rest of us is, successful people follow through on a crazy idea and actually do it.

Nathanael didn’t sit around waiting for someone else to start a theater company. Tom didn’t sit around waiting for someone else to start a record store. And Connie didn’t sit around waiting for someone to offer her a job that suited her better. They're all examples of the contention that one person can make a difference.

Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Farm & Fire restaurant on Highway 331, overlooking Choctawhatchee Bay. Farm & Fire is one of Chef Jim Shirley’s family of fine restaurants. It’s open from 4pm, 6 days a week, and from 11am for brunch on Sundays.

You can find photos from this show by Brandan Babineaux at outtolunchemeraldcoast.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I’m going to start out today’s show by making a generalization. I know I’m not supposed to do that, but I’m pretty sure you’ll agree with me. So here goes: "Previous generations were a lot more dedicated to their work and their careers than we are today."

Our parents and grandparents used to talk about “getting your priorities right.” When it came to work, that generally meant sacrificing whatever else might have been going on in your life, to getting ahead. Even if that meant sticking it out at a job you didn’t love while you waited for a promotion. Or even the total disruption of being transferred to another city.

Today, we’re focused on what we call “work/life balance.” “Balance” is the opposite of “priority.” A priority supposes one thing is more important than another. Balance is only achieved when the things being balanced are equal.

Dr. Prudence Farrow Bruns has been way ahead of this game. Since the 1960’s Prudence has dedicated herself to teaching Transcendental Meditation. TM, as it’s widely known, is a form of meditation that draws on roots from Ancient India and is modified to adapt to our modern lives. Dr. Bruns studies the texts of Ancient India to bring the wisdom within them into the 21st Century. Her goal is to help each of us find balance and harmony between our inner spiritual selves and our physical selves. Prudence may have unwittingly been one of the creators of work/life balance.

How we live our lives is to some degree dependent on where we live.

Most of us live in cities or towns. For many years we contrasted these urban collections of buildings with the natural world, which we called “the environment.” The environment was beautiful and unspoiled. The human dwellings we built on top of it were steel, glass, and concrete. Functionality and utility beat out beauty, hands-down, every time.

Today, things are different. Especially up and down our coast here. We make an effort to balance the human and the natural world. We don’t contrast human habitat with the natural world these days. Instead, we talk about “The built and unbuilt environment.” In other words, we’re not trying to conquer nature and subdue it, as much as work with it and embrace it. And we acknowledge that a utilitarian building can also be – and should be – beautiful.

This urban planning philosophy has developed as the result of the visionary design work, teaching, and writing of a school of architects and developers under the banner of New Urbanism. One of the leading proponents and practitioners of this movement is Dhiru Thadani.

Entrepreneur Of The Week

Our Out to Lunch Entrepreneur of the Week is Tricia Veldman. Tricia is a speech coach. She has a company called Powerful and Poised, focused on overcoming humanity’s number one fear: public speaking.

Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Farm & Fire restaurant on Highway 331, overlooking Choctawhatchee Bay. Farm & Fire is one of Chef Jim Shirley’s family of fine restaurants. It’s open from 4pm, 6 days a week, and from 11am for brunch on Sundays.

You can find photos from this show by Brandan Babineaux at outtolunchemeraldcoast.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.