That fanfare must have been a lot bigger wherever you are than it was in Las Vegas. Coverage of the exhibit in the local newspapers was overshadowed by the number of stories they ran on the closure of the Riviera (the two events transpired within a fortnight of each other). After much banging of the LVA head against various walls, Kirvin Doak Communications informed us that the expo was receiving "great daily traffic [but] it’s against Graceland’s policy to provide exact capacity/traffic numbers for any initiatives." We confirmed this with a Graceland official, who told us that the Presley estate doesn’t even release visitation numbers for Graceland itself.
Elvis: The Exhibit is, in part, a 28,000-square-foot response by the Presley estate to the market of unauthorized and black-market memorabilia, an industry that went into overdrive the moment that The King passed on to that big Sun Records in the sky. Recalled Priscilla Presley to the Las Vegas Sun, "about a year after he passed, there was a souvenir shop across the street from Graceland, and everything was going in there about Elvis, they were taking things out of our trash. They had my eyelashes, you know, back in the 1970s, huge eyelashes of mine. There was a pair of pajamas that I wore that they got a hold of — it was ghastly, my gosh."
Everything you’ll see at Westgate is the real deal and it’s a bargain at $22 a ticket. Graceland Holdings has even promised to display the tablecloth on which Col. Tom Parker renegotiated Presley’s contract, early in his Vegas run, in 1969. An American Eagle jumpsuit, circa 1972, will be on view, as will a congratulatory telegram from Barbra Streisand. According to Westgate, it also offers "Elvis’ high school yearbooks, his first Gold Album, his 1957 Harley Davidson motorcycle, a 1962 Lincoln Continental, 1971 Stutz Blackhawk, jewelry and iconic stage wear from Elvis’ performances, including the first outfit worn on stage for his first concert at the International Hotel in 1969." The 360 exhibit items will be rotated on a six-month basis, so you don’t have to worry about any blink-and-you’ll-miss-it items from the Elvis treasure trove.
Westgate offers the elbow room to display items too large for Graceland. As curator Joel Weinshanker told the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s Mike Weatherford, "we have ceilings five times the height" [of Graceland’s.]
Westgate Las Vegas is also hosting Elvis Experience, a musical extravaganza featuring tribute artist Martin Fontaine, backed by a 24-piece band (mammoth by current Vegas standards) and an eight-voice choir. It is meant to evoke – but not slavishly imitate – Presley’s seven-year run at the then-International Hotel showroom, in the venue where those legendary performances took place. As Westgate owner David Siegel said, "Elvis is as much a part of this building as these walls are."
The musical spectacle was inspired, to some extent, by disapproval of what Cirque du Soleil did to Presley’s legacy in its short-lived Viva Elvis. "Everything that we do is ‘What would Elvis want?’ I keep on feeling that if they would have asked themselves that question, that show would have never happened," Weinshanker told Weatherford. Added Presley’s widow in a Sun interview, "Viva Elvis was basically Cirque du Soleil’s show, and their vision, and we had no part of it. That was very difficult for us." Presumably the Presley estate is happier this time around, being firmly in the driver’s seat.
STOP THE PRESSES!: On the eve of this answer running, we learned that having debuted just over a month ago, on April 23, no tickets will be available for the Elvis Experience production show after May 27. A call to the Box Office informed us that this had always been the intended final date, although this seems like a very short run for such an extravagant production... Likewise, no tickets are available for the "permanent" Elvis: The Exhbition after May 31, which isn't looking so permanent after all. Watch "Today's News" and the June issue of the LVA member newsletter for any further insights or updates about either.
