I had been at Graceland a few hours when I was walking back from storing souvenirs in my car and overheard a lady saying “That pisses me off. $75 to tour that thing and then another $10 to park? What a ripoff.” Everything costs more at Graceland these days. And more people are angry. Most years, my Graceland trips don’t include a tour of the mansion. Now the least expensive tour that includes the mansion costs more than the VIP Tour we took just a few years ago. The focus of my trips has always been to people watch spending as little money as possible. When I started doing this around 20 years ago, the only money that I had to spend was on parking. I returned to that strategy this year. Because of this, my access to some of the good people watching areas was reduced. But I was also committed to keeping socially distanced, staying away from crowded areas.
Staying away from large crowds is easier at Elvis Week now because they aren’t there anymore. There were no lines at the ticketing windows in the visitors’ center. There were also no lines at bus loading for the mansion tour. My thoughts went back to the years before the new visitor’s center where thousands of people were just walking around the stores and the tent with the performers. In comparison, the new facilities look like a ghost town. Most areas of the facility had a few people milling around but it had the feel of being at a dying shopping mall more than a festival like in years past.
My first stop was at the main gift shop for official Elvis Week stuff. The official artwork for this year included a picture of Elvis playing a ukulele wearing his red, Blue Hawaii shirt. My favorite Elvis Week item has always been a ball cap, but they no longer make these. My guess is these didn’t sell well anymore so they discontinued making them, just like when they discontinued Elvis Week pint glasses. That was another one of my favorites. Elvis Presley Enterprises is also concerned about costs, and it costs too much to carry year-specific inventory of items that no one wants to buy. They sell more Elvis Week products to women and women prefer shirts to caps and Yeti-style cups to pint glasses. I bought a shirt and cup. I overheard a shopper in this gift shop say, “Elvis flip flops. O my goodness!” While in line to pay, I introduced myself to Carl from Utah. He and his wife and just completed a riverboat cruse on the Mississippi River. They were just Elvis curious tourists instead making a vacation stop at Graceland instead of the Elvis faithful intentionally coming for Elvis Week. This was their first trip to Graceland and would likely be their last. They had no plans to stay for the Candlelight Vigil. Touring the house would be enough for them.
As we stood in line, an alarm went off on a door that was intended as an emergency exit. The door opened into a ticketed area of the visitor’s facility. This alarm went off at least 3 times while we were waiting in line and stayed on for a long time each time. Graceland potentially misses opportunities to make money if people go through this door to get access to areas they haven’t paid for. The visitors are angry because they get in trouble for using an unauthorized exit and the employees are mad and the visitors for going through a door they shouldn’t use. It seems like the visitor’s center is set up to stir up anger.