This past Friday night was what many called “epic,” “epitome of lavish,” “my best night since the start of the semester,” and “fly.” Potbelly’s was filled to capacity as college students all over Tallahassee arrived to party “lavishly.” Friday at Potbelly’s was the first night of “Flydayz,” a new movement in the college Tallahassee community brought by Lavish Entertainment Group. HC FAMU sat down with one of the co-founders, Ameer Brown, earlier in the week to find out what Lavish Ent. is all about.
HC FAMU: Can you tell me your name?
AB: Ameer Brown
HC FAMU: Your hometown?
AB: Queens, N.Y., born and raised
HC FAMU: Your major?
AB: Public Relations
HC FAMU: Classification?
AB: Junior
HC FAMU: Do you have any nicknames?
AB: Nah, no nicknames. People like to shorten my name from time to time and call me “Meer,” girls mostly. It’s annoying, but it happens a lot.
HC FAMU: What is Lavish Ent. about?
AB: Lavish Entertainment Group. Daniel Ware, Rotimi Omosheyin and I were sitting around on Friday, bored. We were thinking, “We should do something on Fridays.” So we reached out to the Potbellys owner, Dan Giberson. He knew we were in a frat and believed we could create a movement to get people to come to Potbellys on Fridays. We had all different names for the group but we thought, you don’t have to be rich to live lavish. So we came up with a “Live life to the fullest” type of movement. We came up with Potbelly Flydays Fridays and ran with it from there.
HC FAMU: How long have you guys been up and running?
AB: About six weeks. In six weeks we’ve had buttons and products made.
HC FAMU: Have you considered branching Lavish out beyond partying?
AB: For right now it’s just Potbellys Fridays. We want to throw quality parties and build a solid reputation but we hope to do other things besides parties.
HC FAMU: What makes Lavish. Ent different?
AB: We wanted to make sure it was a movement more than a party. We’re reaching out campus wide to everybody. Instead of having random people promote, we want to promote ourselves. We’re throwing parties for you, by you. We’re student ran.
HC FAMU: What is your “position” in Lavish Ent.?
AB: Co-founder of Lavish
HC FAMU: Do you consider yourself a entrepreneur?
AB: Yeah, we are an official business. If we’re generating revenue then we’re college entrepreneurs. We wanted to find our niche in the entrepreneur world and we did.
HC FAMU: How have you personally exemplified the lavish movement?
AB: It’s all about setting yourself up for the movement. It’s about getting good grades, being social, being likable, giving back to the community and setting your future up for success, ie: internships. Creating a life that you see for yourself later, right now. The way we correlate that to a party scene is wanting the parties to be more of a celebration of achievement, success and living life to the fullest.
HC FAMU: How is Lavish Ent. preparing you for your future endeavors?
AB: It’s all about building a brand. I’m networking with club owners, building a following and building a brand. There’s merchandising, product, PR, representation, and workers. In terms of my career, I’ll be able to leave college and say I mobilized a select amount of people to support something. If you can do that, that’ll help you in any career.
HC FAMU: Any words of advice to other college students looking to become entrepreneurs?
AB: It’s not going to start itself. If you have a good idea or an inclination of one then it’s looking good so far. We wouldn’t know anything about it [Lavish Ent.] if we didn’t try. Just try. Even if it’s a pen and pad, take a step towards your ultimate goal. Everything started with someone saying “Oh, that’d be cool.” I don’t see why you shouldn’t just take a shot. You only live once right? Not to be cliche.
HC FAMU: Any last words?
AB: We’re thankful for all the support! We’re humble and everything we do is for the college Tallahasee community to provide good parties. And we love team Lavish. We wanna see everyone wearing our buttons all over campus.
Follow Lavish Ent. on Twitter!