City-parish rolls out app for local businesses

Mayor Kip Holden today unveiled a new smartphone app designed to help local businesses peddle their goods and services to the area’s growing film and television industry. The app, By Baton Rouge, is available for the iPhone or iPad. “Whether your business is a restaurant, a bar, a hair salon, a plant nursery, a baby nursery, a lumber yard or an office supplies outlet, this new app will allow you to offer your goods and services directly to the film and movie industry,” Holden says. Last year, the film and television industry spent an estimated $200 million in the Baton Rouge area, Holden says. Though the city-parish is launching the app to promote local businesses, it tapped Charlotte, N.C.-based Reel-Scout Inc. to develop and distribute it. You can register your business on By Baton Rouge by clicking here. On the registration page, you can sign up to display your goods and services, and you’ll also have the option of offering a discount. The city-parish will provide participants with By Baton Rouge decals for storefronts to help identify the businesses as film and television friendly. Meanwhile, qualified film and television productions will receive By Baton Rouge vendor discount cards that will list the name of the production, along with beginning and ending dates for discounts.