One look at the Elvis Week schedule and it becomes apparent that it’s geared toward the tourists (and not the locals) who may have no qualms with shelling out lots of dollars for Elvis Week events. After all, they’ve traveled so far to get here, so they might as well make it worth their while and take part in it all.
Everything from tribute contests to tours, from conversations to screenings, from parties to dinners and other random “special” events — each will cost you anywhere from $25 to $139 a pop. To be sure, there are some free events, but most of the ones worth going to will put a nice dent in your wallet, which undoubtedly will keep locals away. Of course, one of the bigger highlights of Elvis Week is the free candlelight vigil. But once you’ve done it one year, there’s not much reason to do it again unless you’re a fanatic on an annual pilgrimage…or just like to wait in line for hours and people watch for giggles.
Elvis Week shouldn’t be just for tourists. It should be a city-wide celebration that’s also embraced by locals rather than tolerated or avoided. It should be a big party…a grand street carnival. In short, make Elvis Week our Mardis Gras.
I may not go to the Elvis Week events with the tourists and be the poorer for it, but I sure would like to participate in block parties and watch huge parades with Elvis-themed floats cruising from Cooper Young down Madison Avenue to downtown Main Street. I can just see the parade teams upping the ante of creativity and competition each year to the public’s delight.
Imagine the worldwide coverage Memphis would get with such a city-wide, week-long Elvis-party spectacular. If Elvis Week were to become our Mardi Gras, I’d bet dollars to fried-peanut-butter-banana sandwiches that the tourists coming to town for that week would at least double in size and Memphians would not only embrace Elvis Week with pride but actually look forward to it with lips curled.
love it.
Let’s be clear. Mardi Gras is loathed by much of the rest of the city just like Elvis Week is by Memphis. Both are geared to attract tourist dollars. Neither are or could be city wide celebration.
Getting behind Elvis week may sound great economically on paper… built in brand name and built in audience. However, I think it would be very hard to rally the rest of Memphis, to embrace and promote the establishment that already has disproportionate resources. Again, those of us with little promoting the things that already have everything. Tourist will go to the places that cater to tourist. Having the Hi-tone to an Elvis theme will not attract the locals audience to the Hi-tone.
As for the parade or block party, where is the money coming from? I would certainly participate in a parade and build a giant flaming elvis that explodes money….. if I was given a budget. I certainly would not use my own money. Aside from any trickle down theory, you can’t ask people to rally behind something that doesn’t do anything for them. I find it difficult to imagine anything that would make locals come out to celebrate Elvis. Unless of course it was a complete outrageous spectacle like Burning Man. The spectacle serves one kind of audience. There is nothing celebrating about it. It’s a spectacle at that point.
The bottom line is, If you want to create a spectacle you have to pay for it. If you want a to create something real, something the city can actually rally behind like…. a social movement?, it should probably be more inclusive.
I would never be at some dumb elvis block party or parade unless of course, I was being paid to be there. Memphis has drunken block parties every day of the week. It’s called Beale Street.
Keep in mind that I actually like Elvis, just not enough to go celebrating on by own dime. It only makes sense for the people in the tourism business. So, dont call it a “City Wide Celebration”. Call it what it is, a spectacle. Let Graceland pay for whatever they want.
That said, I would show up to see a 1000 ft Elvis burn to the ground and explode fireworks. Think Graceland would go for that? Think they would sue me if I did it on my own dime?
humm… my idea!
Bah humbug, Chris.
And what on Earth are you talking about? “…promote the establishment that already has disproportionate resources.” ????? Wanting to be paid to attend a parade.
Man, Chris, that’s jaded.
yah think?
Actually, It’s not that I am jaded. It’s that I’ve seen people in Memphis waste resource after resource with dumb ideas. I am not saying your idea is dumb I am saying don’t try and convince the city that this would be a “city wide celebration”. Call it what it is, a tourism strategy. And John, don’t act like you don’t know what disproportionate resources are. The city pumps millions of dollars a year promoting “dead memphis”, the Memphis of long ago. Cultivate today, and you ‘lll have something for tomorrow. This is a conversation that Smart City has been having since it started.
Also I didn’t say anything about getting paid to attend. I said I wouldn’t go unless I was a participant in creating the parade.
heh. You just want me to like your idea and I don’t
Sorry.
No, it’s not a tourism strategy. I do believe one side-effect would be to attract more tourism, which isn’t a bad thing — it can help artists make a living here, just look at NYC. But at heart, it’s a community and culture building strategy which Memphis sorely needs. It’s about reviving Memphis, not promoting “dead” Memphis. Without a strong sense of community and a healthy culture, trying to cultivate today won’t go as far. God knows Memphians need to party together as a community, if only to forget our problems and collectively lift our spirits once a year.
Mardi Gras certainly helps New Orleans do this.
I agree we need a sense of community but it ain’t Elvis. Music, yes. Elvis no.
As artists, We can’t even embrace Elvis’s image without putting ourselves at potential risk of a law suit. What artist wants to do that? Graceland has to sanction everything or at least tries. You know this is true. It’s happening as we speak with the film that is being shot in Memphis right now.
All I’m saying is do something more inclusive. A healthy community can’t be made up of just fans. People need the ability to take ownership and make it theirs. They can’t do this with something they have no hand in making. What you are suggesting just requires followers.
haha. Memphis does enough partying on its own.
Elvis = music. Elvis is part of our culture. So it is ours. That’s the closest thing we have as a common culture. Elvis and rock is one of the main things that put Memphis on the map so we should leverage that history and culture as a local unifier, not just as a tourist cash cow with Sun, Beale, etc. Locals can and should take more ownership of our history and make it ours in a much more creative and inclusive way. As it is now, we as a city, as locals, don’t seem to take part in that history. We, or our govt, has positioned it for tourists. Locals are on the sidelines.
Locals embracing Elvis Week as our Mardi Gras would help change that. It could celebrate Elvis, rock, and the blues that influenced him. It could celebrate our current rock, hip-hop, etc. that was influenced by Elvis and the blues. So local musicians can make that week their own. Elvis Week could be filled with local music at block parties, parades, festivals, etc. that visitors and locals alike can experience and be exposed to. So such a party week would celebrate all music — past and present.
And if Graceland has to sanction certain things, then so be it. I doubt they wouldn’t as they’d surely benefit from such an enlarged week. In fact, I’m sure they’d help fund it. It’s in their interest.
Elvis has left the building.
I’m glad you’re so sure of what Graceland will do, have you actually spoken on behalf of any artist to Graceland?
Maybe it’s no so easy.
Maybe they don’t have an interest in funding artists as much as funding fixing bad facelifts. Sorry.
Elvis is dead, Reyes is right.
Stop pouring money into yesterday and start working on tomorrow’s money. You can’t move forward by looking backwards without having a wreck or turning n circles, either way, = no progress and continued migration out.
We don’t have anything very Elvis-centric other than Graceland. Other than that, it’s just bric-a-brac. Nashville has a great Elvis week. You missed the bus.
Reyes, you’re a grassroots genius.
Geez Chris- if it’s not your idea then it must be a bad one and anyone who would support it must be getting paid to support the establishment. You wouldn’t go unless you were invited to be a participant. Sounds pretty immature. No one will force you to participate and I have no doubt you will have enough respect to let the rest of us enjoy our party and parade.
The idea does have merit and more than the tourists are involved in Mardi Gras down in New Orleans. I know because I actually know some individuals who were born and raised in New Orleans and it is a reason to party every year. They may not be in one of the krewes, but they have their own block parties and spend at least one night at the parade each year.
Elvis ain’t Mardi Gras.
Never was, here, never will be. It is in Nashville. You missed the boat.
You would have to tell a lot of seriously ignorant Memphians about WHO Elvis was. I’ve heard a LOT of Memphians hate on Elvis because they don’t know who he was and believe the rumors of some jealous nut instead.
The wages of subverting education rears it’s ugly face again.
Fix the flippin schools already or this place is as good as dead.
I have been to the Nashville version of Elvis week- cheap, small and a total lack of authenticity. BK- try actually visiting the two events before speaking with such authority.
The city has never “missed the boat” when it comes to Elvis week. Get a grip and stop basing the foundation of your argument entirely on the school system’s woes. I bet you are totally unaware that the Nashville school system was in such horrific condition that is was entirely taken over by the state in the 1990s. Yet Nashville has proven to be an economic success in spite of the state of its dismal school system. Maybe you need to rethink your premise.
Public Schools: scapegoat of the uninformed.
Putting aside the fact that he is, reportedly anyway, dead, I don’t know how Elvis can be called part of dead Memphis. The company that owns Graceland was/is planning a massive redevelopment of the entire area around the house. When it is the 2nd most visited home in the country. I may not look forward to Elvis Mardi Gras either, but its hard to stare the facts in the face and claim that Elvis does not still bring a tremendous amount of value to the community. Its also hard to argue that we have really ever taken advantage of that value as much as we could, which is the overal point of John’s post.
Nashville fixed it’s school problem and is still woking on it.
I have been to Elvis week in Nashville and Memphis, and when I was in Nashville, I thought, ” This is a bit disingenuous for such a large and all encompassing event they do here, in Nashville, where Elvis wasn’t living. I wish they would do something like this in Memphis”.
It’s not the school systems woes that are the problem, it’s the effects of them over time. You need to leave the riverbanks of Egypt, DENIAL.
People don’t come here because crime is so high because the education level here is so low, get it, bad ed over time equals ignorance and racism equals violent crime.
I don’t claim that Elvis doesn’t bring in money, Graceland is an international attraction and no joke.
Actually, from what I have read- Nashville did not fix its school problem, the state simply took over. Apparently they continue to receive very low marks and it is far from “fixed”. In fact there is still talk of the state intervening once again in a system that many in Nashville see as broken beyond repair- http://www.insidevandy.com/drupal/node/7981
Brian, I also think you are missing a major point in that argument. That is that Nashville’s school system had been failing for years and this failure was finally acknowledged by the state in the 1990s. However, this coincided with the explosive economic growth Nashville and its region has seen. Apparently a horrific public school system that was in even worse shape than that found in Memphis was un able to deter this growth. It sort of begs the question regarding the direct correlation you suggest between fixing the public schools as a necessity in order to realize economic growth.
By the way- thanks Anon and Bryan for pointing the Nashville shool issue out, I would not have looked deeper had it not been for the discussion above.
Well, the new Tcap scores are in and you might want to not that last year, a 50% was counted as proficient when all over the world, a 50% is total failure, and that this year, 50% is now total failure in Memphis as well. When was the bar lowered to the standard of mentally retarded scores?
So when your kid that goes to MCS brings home their Tcap scores, don’t be surprised to find out your “genius kid” was sonly a previous preconception based on a stupid scoring system is a system that taught the kids how to cheat on the test, the new scores will show a lot of failure. If you thought the list of underperforming schools was bad before, you might want to sew your eyelids shut.
Mostly math scores will be affected as we have never sought out great math teachers. That is an unfortunate turn of events for Memphis, as will be the lawsuit for subverting the truth via the previous bogus scoring method used here and causing an entire generation of kids to not be ready for college.
I think when you see the new scores, the argument that MCS is doing better than Nashville on it’s worst day will be baseless.
The good news is that the bad news tells you exactly where you stand, and you can’t move forward without that knowledge. Now you have it.
Is MCS broken beyond repair?
Maybe, we’ll see if they are truly willing to do what is exactly called for.
I think if you pick up the stats and look at what caused the economic booms, you’ll see that the Bad schools also didn’t cause the booms, but, when those kids that were in school get out, can’t get jobs and enter the justice system on the wrong side, you get to where we are now, in an economic depression with a generation of workers with no intellectual capital to spend on fixing the problems. We’re broke now, and kids broken by MCS malfeasance are looking for jobs.
I expect the state to take over here very soon.
Yeah, let me tell you about that Elvis week in Nashville. People just won’t shut up about it. Give me a f******* break! I bet if I walked up to a 100 people on the street, not one person will have ever heard of Elvis week in Nashville. This is actually my first time hearing about it. Completely irrelevant!!!!!