I was walking back to the entertainment tent at Graceland when I saw 4 people from Brazil. I was in my Elvis Week element when I started talking to them and asking them about their visit. Only one of them had ever been to Graceland before. One of the men did most of the talking. He grabbed at the blue wristband on his arm and said, “I don’t like this.” I said I didn’t like it either. The wristband was a “Graceland Property Pass” that gave you access to various areas during Elvis Week. It was also the only way you could get to the Candlelight Vigil this year. The only way to get this pass was to purchase one of the tour packages. The minimum cost of one of these packages was nearly $30. This was a significant change for an event that has always been free. It didn’t affect us because we were already planning to tour the house and the new visitor’s center exhibits. But it was affecting our Brazilian friends because they were spending the week in Memphis for Elvis Week. They had done the tours and exhibits earlier in the week and had no reason to revisit them. Each of them purchased an additional $30 ticket just to do the candlelight vigil and they didn’t like it. These changes came up early in our conversations with most people and without me asking. Change has come to Graceland and the fans don’t like it.
My friend Tina was returning with me this year for her fifth consecutive Elvis Week. Our friend Kay was joining us for her first trip ever to Graceland. Tina is an avid Elvis fan while Kay was checking of an item from her bucket list. I had given Kay a rundown of our normal agenda for Elvis Week and she was good with whatever we wanted to do. She was just along for the show. Our first stop after getting our Property Passes was at the gift shop. While I was purchasing a cap and shirt, I saw a guy trying on shirts in the middle of the shop. This was something I had never seen at Graceland before. It was new to see someone trying on shirts over their other clothes. Later in the day, I saw someone else doing the same thing in another gift shop. Both guys appeared to be visitors from foreign countries where I assume doing this would be more commonplace.
It seemed like there were more people international visitors this year than regular. There were times when it seemed like we were surrounded by non-Americans. They all had thick accents and many spoke only a minimal amount of English. We ran into a group from the Netherlands that included 40 people. There was a group of over 100 Australians that were all dressed in red, white and blue polo shirts. I think the number of foreigners in the crowd added to the confusion of the day. In the past, the success of the relied on the fans knowing how things worked and helping new visitors and foreigners. Things have changed enough that the fans don’t know how things are supposed to work. The employees didn’t know how they were supposed to work either.
A great example was when we went to eat at Glady’s Diner. This restaurant is one of only two at Elvis Presley’s Memphis, the new visitor’s center and museum complex. These two restaurants were not enough to accommodate the number of visitors during Elvis Week. It took us about an hour to get through the line at the Diner. An employee tried to direct the crowd into three distinct lines based on what we were going to order. The lines all merged and the people behind the counter were taking orders for anything and everything. Chaos was the order of the day. There was not a good flow for the people through the ordering area. Even the ventilation wasn’t adequate in the cooking area. Because of this and the crowd, the room was extremely hot as you picked up your food. There was a constant, greasy cloud in the grill area and the dining area. The dining area didn’t have enough seats to accommodate an Elvis Week crowd. Later in the evening, we heard someone suggest that they could improve the new visitor’s center by dropping a bomb on that new diner.
This was the point in the day when I saw my favorite shirts. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a picture. An older lady was wearing a red shirt that said, “I Love Elvis”. It also had a picture of Elvis. Her husband had a shirt that said, “My wife might love Elvis but she’s stuck with me.”
We stopped by the restrooms before we went to get in line for the tour. There were lines in the new restrooms too. This had never been an issue in the old facilities. As I exited the restroom, I struck up a conversation with a guy from New Jersey. He had been to Graceland several times. He was wearing gold sunglasses, a black Elvis t-shirt and a big, white Elvis Jumpsuit belt. You rarely see anyone with a full jumpsuit anymore during the candlelight vigil. There might be some kids and they are usually trying to get money for pictures. When I told the guy from New Jersey where I was from, he said he would be moving here in six months. When I asked him about it, he said, “Because of the second amendment. You we’ve got to all this stuff that’s so political. You have to be concerned for your kids”.
