Politics was making its unwelcome way into this event to add to the chaos of the day. I had plenty of time to brood over this during our wait in line for the tour, which was over an hour. I was quickly distracted by a group of women wearing matching shirts. I took a couple of pictures of them and asked where they were from. They were related and from all over the country. They were the only group of people in matching shirts that we talked to this year that were from the U.S.
During the tour, it seemed like there were more people jammed into the house. In past years, I have snapped pictures of the rooms. Years later, I decided that the best pictures were selfies with the rooms in the background. I was overwhelmed by the number of people in the rooms. I felt that this experience was completely different from what it would have been like when Elvis was alive. It felt more like I was standing in a queue line for a ride at an amusement park than standing in a historic home. I started taking pictures more pictures of the crowd than the rooms. I did take time to snap a selfie with one of the tour guides.
One of the criticisms of the changes has been the transformation of the racketball court back to a racketball court. Many of the people that I talked to with complaints about the changes focused on this area. Previously, this room was decorated with gold records and jumpsuits. The items on display ran all the way to the tall ceiling of this room and was awe-inspiring. It was one of the stops on the tour where you felt compelled to stop and take it in for a while. Now the walls are empty. I understand that it is now truer to the way it was when Elvis used it but they had done such a good job of creating an interesting exhibit previously, it’s hard to get used to it this way. The new areas where they have moved these records and jumpsuits are still impressive but don’t have quite the impact of the racketball court exhibit.
I usually try to get in line for the vigil about 2 hours before the ceremony starts. On the 5 and 10-year anniversary years, like this year, the crowds are larger and an earlier arrival can help. We arrived later because I got caught up talking to some people from Kansas City because the lady had Charlie Brown related Elvis shirt. We weren’t sure about the best way to get to the line queue next to the gates. In addition to the concrete barriers to block the road they had used for the first time last year, they had also set up fences across the road with guards to do scanning. We took a path that most people didn’t take to this area and bypassed the security people with wands. We got to our place in line which was further back than where I usually like to start. As usual, I struck up a conversation with the people in line around us. The people behind us were from the Australian group. After a while, some other Australians invited them to join them in a position closer to the front of the line. A large group of Australians relocated at that point. Now we were left with Belgians who didn’t speak very good English behind us and Scots in front of us who of course spoke English but were nearly impossible to understand. Some ladies were setting up one of the tributes in the road near us and I went over to talk to them. There were 6 ladies from Illinois. One of the ladies was the artist of the group had been to Graceland over 65 times and had been regularly to the Candlelight Vigil but she said this would be her last one. She didn’t like the changes. She specifically mentioned the racketball court and the charge for the vigil. She echoed the sentiment that Tina has expressed by saying that the event had less of a family reunion feel than in years past. More control was being exerted by Elvis Presley Enterprises. As sad as it is to see the changes come, I feel like most of the changes help establish Graceland as a viable tourist attraction long after this generation of fans passes away.