Scalloped Iterations
I lived in the south for 15 years before moving back up 2 1/2 years ago, so I've had a few different experiences.
About 10 years ago we cooked up an idea for scalloped iterations. Say you do product demos once a week or every other week, and you've run into that task that needs to be done over a 3 - 4 week period. You could have a few devs launch one initiative week 1, that will take 3 weeks. Different devs launch a different initiative week 2, that will take 3 weeks, and so on.
That way you can get the best of both worlds - product still sees a demo each week and devs can have flexibility as needed.