The first CountryLink Parkes holiday was held on January ’93 in the town of Parkes, Central New South Wales. It is found 365 Kilometers west of Sydney, Australia. Lots of the eleven thousand towns folk are passionate about Elvis Presley but one man in particular is extremely keen about Elvis.
He was fascinated with the King when he was only five years old, after watching ‘Love Me Tender’ staring Elvis, that was in’59. He started his Elvis mementos collection at this age. But when he turned 16, he became even more keen about Elvis. In ’97, Neville and his wife Debbie made the trip to ‘Graceland’ the famous home of Elvis in Tennessee, USA, they returned home with 6 suitcases of keepsakes and Neville ‘deed polled’ his legal name to ‘Elvis’ with his Mother’s permission.
Neville and Debbie have a room in their home about the scale of a garage that’s set up with nothing but Elvis souvenirs. Each year in the CountryLink Parkes holiday, the room is open to the public to view all of the interesting items he has picked up.
The month of January was picked for this festival as it would coincide with Elvis’ birthday of Jan 8th, and because it was actually the slow tourism time for the city.
The first year the festival was given, it only lasted one night and over a few hundred folk attended. In the ten years that followed, 1 or 2 more events had been added and a few hundred people attended every year.
In 2004 and 2005, some new council members stepped in and had new visions and ideas. Now it has grown to eight thousand folk in 2008 that took part in the holiday and more than 8,000 attended in 2009. The holiday has grown in some ways, now the holiday starts on Wed. and last through Sun.. The Festival has now more than 120 individual events during those 5 days.
The event starts in Sydney on the CountryLink Elvis Express train that takes people to Parkes. They are serenaded by Elvis the entire train trip. The majority of the major events are scheduled Thursday thru Sun., like the ‘Elvis Concert’ and the ‘Elvis Gospel Church Service’ and plenty more.
To keep your memory of the CountryLink Parkes Elvis festival alive all year, there’s a special calendar you may purchase from www.festivalcalendar.com.au.
Learn more about the Parkes Elvis Festival.
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