Parkes Elvis Festival

After Covid meant that the 2021 festival was cancelled, and moved the 2022 Festival out from it’s usual date in January, the Parkes Elvis Festival finally returned on the 20^th April.

The theme of this year’s festival was Speedway, one of Elvis Presley’s 31 movies, so not only were there plenty of Elvis impersonators to see, but some beautiful cars too!

We started our festival experience with the Amazing Forbes Street Breakfast on the Friday morning – breakfast and a coffee with some live music and some dancing!

On Saturday morning we attended the street parade and enjoyed the show of Elvis and Priscilla look-a-likes as well as the cars. This was followed by the opening ceremony at Cooke Park. We took a stroll around the markets in the park, where they had some beautiful dresses and Elvis merchandise, before finding some seats (in the shade) for the day to enjoy some entertainment.

They had a number of competitions during the day, including look-a-likes and a Rock ‘n’ Roll dance competition, in between various Elvis impersonators. Toki Toyokazu or Japanese Elvis was one of our favourites but the best was ShElvis! HER vocal range was just amazing, and she hit more of both the high and the lower notes than the others!

The best part of the day was just watching people of all ages get up and dance! Everybody just seemed genuinely happy to be there and sharing their love of Elvis’ music.

As we live so (relatively) close we decided to head back to the festival on Sunday afternoon. We arrived in time to see the end of the Renewal of Vows Ceremony and the cutting of the cake, as well as a quick performance by Taylor Rodriguez, the feature artist of this festival, and the 2019 Ultimate Elvis Tribute Artist Champion.

After more competitions, they had some more impersonators, and Japanese Elvis was back! Anthony Petrucci was the favourite of the day however, and he performed some of the less popular songs which was refreshing – I lost count of how many times we heard Blue Suede Shoes or Sweet Caroline!

Overall it was a great first festival, and definitely would know who I would want to see in a paid concert next year, and want to get involved in some of the other events that take place!