Over 6,700 km from Graceland, this town is crazy about Elvis

[PORTHCAWL, Wales] Like many British seaside destinations, the Welsh town of Porthcawl offers good surfing, fish and chips, and other traditional amusements. But it is perhaps best known for something decidedly American: celebrating the life and music of Elvis Presley. Every September, it hosts one of the world’s largest gatherings of Elvis tribute artists and fans.

The town, once a popular vacation spot for Welsh coal miners, became somewhat forgotten as warmer vacations in mainland Europe became more accessible in the 1970s. But the Porthcawl Elvis Festival has changed that, said Peter Phillips, the event’s organiser. The festival now draws about 40,000 attendees each year – more than doubling the town’s population for a weekend.

“You couldn’t think of a more inappropriate place to put an Elvis festival,” Phillips said. “But it seems to work.”

Porthcawl’s first Elvis festival took place in 2004 after Phillips was asked to come up with a fundraiser for the Grand Pavilion, an old seafront event space that was at risk of closure.

Having attended an Elvis tribute competition at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, just two weeks earlier, Phillips entertained what he considered an outrageous thought: Why not bring Elvis to Porthcawl?

Wales has no confirmed ties to Elvis Presley, and the singer never performed outside North America. But even in a small town like Porthcawl, Elvis’ blending of styles like gospel and country, his inspirational rags-to-riches story and his flashy fashion appeal to retirees and five-year-olds alike, Phillips said.

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“It’s an iconic image,” he said. “That’s why Elvis just keeps going.”

The Porthcawl festival is also a party.

In smaller tents outside the main festival arenas, performers dressed like Elvis sang pop and country hits from around Elvis’ time. “Don’t forget – the more you drink, the better I sound!” one sweaty singer wearing a black leather jumpsuit cried before launching into Kenny Rogers’ The Gambler.

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Men in aloha shirts and leis twirled women in swing skirts beneath the stage, beer overflowing from their plastic cups.

Nearby, a man in a white jumpsuit walked behind his two-year-old son in an identical miniature costume. A woman pushed an American-flag-draped stroller containing a French bulldog with a black pompadour and gold aviators.

There were bachelor and bachelorette parties, Elvis jumpsuits zipped down to expose hairy belly buttons, and black Priscilla Presley wigs askew.

“Welsh people like to dress up,” said Darren Jones, an Elvis tribute artist who has attended every Porthcawl festival since 2004. “They like to have a party.”

Known as “the land of song”, Wales has bred talents like Tom Jones – who was influenced by, and was friends with, Elvis – as well as Shirley Bassey and Bonnie Tyler.

That helps explain why it’s home to so many Elvis fans, Darren Jones said. “We love a singer,” he noted. “We’re born to sing.”

In a working-class town like Porthcawl, Elvis’ story of transcending his humble means, but not forgetting them, hits home – and compels people to return to the festival each year.

“The fantasy of absolute ambition and faith in one’s own talent against all odds, and a vision that amounts to total outsized excess and making it, is really something that still I think has wide appeal,” said Eric Lott, a cultural historian at the City University of New York who has written about Elvis and his legacy.

And in Porthcawl, the spirit is catching.

“Whether they’re out there for the drinking or the Elvis, they soon become an Elvis fan,” Jones added. NYTIMES