The History of CountryLink Parkes Elvis Festival

vseo — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 23:01:27 +0000

The first Parkes Festival was held on January 1993 in the town of Parkes, Central New South Wales. The town is located 365 kilometres west of Sydney, Australia. Many of the 11,000 town’s people are passionate about Elvis Presley but one man in particular is very passionate about Elvis.
Neville was fascinated with the King when he was only 5 years old, after watching “Love Me Tender” staring Elvis. That was back in 1959. He started his Elvis memorabilia collection at this young age. When he turned 16, he became even more passionate about Elvis. In 1997, 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 souvenirs. With his mother’s permission Neville then decided to change his first name by ‘deed poll’ to ‘Elvis’.

Neville and Debbie have a large room in their house about the size of a garage that is set up with nothing but Elvis memorabilia. Every year during the CountryLink Parkes Elvis Festival, the room is open to the public to view all the fascinating items he has collected.
The month of January was picked for this festival because it would coincide with Elvis’ birthday on January 8th, and because it was the slow tourism time for the town of Parkes.

The first year the festival was heard, it only lasted one night and a few hundred people attended. In the 10 years that followed, a few more events were added to the event but only and a few hundred people still attended each year.

In 2004 and 2005, some new committee members stepped in with a new vision and ideas for the festival. In 2008 the attendance had grown to 8,000 people. In 2009 more than 9,500 visitors attended the 5 day festival with more than 120 events on the program.

Each year the CountryLink Elvis Express train departs from Sydney and takes over 380 people to Parkes. They are serenaded by several Elvis tribute artists the entire train trip.

Most of the major events are scheduled Thursday through to Sunday, like the ‘Themed Elvis Concerts’ the ‘Elvis Street Parade’ and the “Elvis Gospel Church Service” plus many more.

To keep your memory of the CountryLink Parkes Elvis Festival alive all year, there is a special limited edition calendar you may wish to purchase from www.festivalcalendar.com.au

Hello world!

vseo — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 21:04:44 +0000

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

Parkes Elvis Festival Calendar

The History of CountryLink Parkes Elvis Festival

Hello world!