Anticipation grows for silver anniversary of Elvis Presley Festival
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
May 27—TUPELO — With fewer than two weeks to go, the 25th anniversary of the Tupelo Elvis Festival could bring the largest attendance to the four-day event since pre-pandemic days.
Some events are sold out, including the opening night gala and its after parties, but plenty of tickets remain for the Saturday, June 10, performance of the North Mississippi Symphony Orchestra at Cadence Arena, which could very well be the highlight of this year's festival.
"We're making a major push these last couple of weeks," said Lucia Randle, executive director of the Downtown Tupelo Main Street Association, which organizes the festival. "I think Saturday night's symphony performance is going to be outstanding; it's going to be a magical night. They've really worked really hard on the production of this show."
The Silver Jubilee Concert with festival host Tom Brown features Pat Dunn and Elvis Tribute Artists Ben Thompson, Brandon Bennett, Dean Z and Jay Dupuis along with NMSO and the T.I.C. Band.
"It's really going to be an elegant event," Randle said.
The festival has historically bought thousands of fans to Tupelo, but the COVID outbreak in early 2020 forced the event to go virtual that year. In 2021, in-person events returned, mostly inside Cadence Bank Arena, with tickets sold in pods, or small groups. And last year, the festival was completely open, but again with most of the performances inside the arena, as they will again this year.
The festival kicks off on June 7 with a Silver Jubilee Gala which is held mainly for the sponsors. Public activities begin June 8, with concerts, the Ultimate Tribute Artist competition, boxing, the Run with the King 5K and other activities before wrapping up June 11 with a gospel concert.
BENEFIT TO BUSINESSES
Businesses stand to benefit from the influx of festivalgoers staying in hotels, eating in restaurants and doing some shopping while they're in town.
Lodging shouldn't be an issue, as the city has more than 2,000 rooms available, but some hotels have already sold out of rooms for the week.
Hotel Tupelo, a boutique hotel that opened in March of last year, sold out its block of rooms for its first festival, had 20 rooms left to sell as of Tuesday. The Hilton brand has several hotels in the Tupelo, and demand is high at the Hilton Garden Inn in Downtown Tupelo. Weekend rates top $300 at the property. Meanwhile, the 89-room Home2Suites is sold out.
In addition, Courtyard by Marriott, Comfort Suites and Baymont are all booked for the week.
Restaurant owners like Jason and Amanda Hayden of Cafe 212 look forward to the festival and other such big events each year as well
"We definitely see an uptick anytime there is a big event in town," Jason said. "Back when the Lyric hosted the tribute artists, it was more business than we could handle some years, since it was right around the corner. Having it at the arena now is definitely a necessity because of the popularity of the event, and I think it helps spread the sales around to all the restaurants and businesses in the downtown district."
Hayden said there's even a group of ladies who have come to the cafe every year for the past decade or so who like to share their thoughts about the two-day Ultimate Elvis Tribute Artist competition.
"It's funny because they all have their favorite tribute artists they root for and will tell me who the front runners are and who they believe doesn't have a chance," he said.
Festival attendees, like most Elvis fans, will visit Tupelo Hardware where he bought his first guitar, and they'll walk around taking their photos in front of murals and other landmarks. They'll also visit the Elvis Presley Birthplace and Museum.
"We expect we'll see quite a few more visitors from the festival this year," said executive director Roy Turner. "This is the first festival since the 'Elvis' movie came out, and we're already seeing more people coming here who say they had seen the movie and wanted to come see where Elvis was born."
A record 25 performers will compete in this year's Ultimate Tribute Artist competition this year. The four Elvis Tribute Artists who will be performing with the North Mississippi Symphony Orchestra all have won the UTA competition in Memphis. Three of them — Brandon Bennett, Jay Dupuis and Ben Thompson — all won in Tupelo first before going on to win at Graceland at its annual Elvis Presley Week celebration each August.
"Graceland had its Ultimate Tribute Artist competition for 15 years, and in eight of those years, someone who won Tupelo has won it," Randle said. "People really like to compete in Tupelo."
OUTDOOR EVENTS FUTURE
As for the future of having outdoor events returning to the festival, Randle said she hopes to bring them back one day. Elvis Fest is the major fundraiser for the Downtown Tupelo Main Street Association, and back-to-back festivals had attendance hampered by the weather. Rain or shine, performers have to be paid, and the work to set up stages and other logistics also require payment.
Those years of bad weather put the association in a financial hole, something the DTMS board is wary of repeating.
"We want to bring back the outdoor element if its makes financial sense," Randle said. "We would love to have it. But as we looked into the festival, we saw that those indoor events were where we were making money, and it's why we have the events at the arena and conference center."
Randle said she isn't opposed to working with outside groups who want to bring live music outdoors in conjunction with the festival, and is willing to lend its support.
"One thing we have to think about is we only have four people working in the office, and it takes a small army of volunteers to work the outdoor events," she said. "We want to do what's best for the festival and for the association, and I think right now we're where we need to be. But having the outdoor element return in some form is what we'd like."
