by John Connell
Oh, I lost track …Well, they provide breakfast, and then you just do drinks, lunch, tea, so we sort of haven’t added up. You’ll look at the credit card bill later. Yeah. And then freak out.
I’d hate to even think about how much we might spend on alcohol. We could be drinking five or six drinks, maybe $50 a day or $100 a day. And food as well. Maybe $500 over the three days, with all the food and alcohol we’re going to have. Food and drinks? Oh, heaps. I don’t know how much, I’d hate to say. I don’t want to know. Just write ‘heaps’.
Once in the mood people seemed to keep going. When asked, ‘What did you get?’:
Yeah, we bought sunglasses. We’ve gotten our tattoos.
All Elvis stuff, mostly. The glasses, I got the ’50s glasses. Just dresses, dresses and clothes. And the stubby holders. Spoon, a little souvenir spoon, end[ed] up getting one of them. A fridge magnet. It’s coming back to me now. Dust collectors, too.
Hats, stubby holders. All the normal stuff ... T-shirts. All that sort of crap. Probably all get thrown away before too long.
I’m planning on buying that Elvis clock and I want to look around for an Elvis watch. And then there’s fridge magnets for the relos back home.
Purchasing Festival calendars kept the thought of Elvis alive for another twelve months. Spending could be frenzied. It could be dangerous to get in the way of the fanatics when the action heated up: ‘There are some fanatical Elvis fans around, if you get in their way, they’ll knock you down to get at stuff’; ‘Some of the older ladies … Don’t get in between them and an Elvis they want to see … Old ladies between Elvis and you, mate, you’re in a bit of trouble’.
The feeling that spending was a necessary part of being at a festival even extended to some sense of duty and apology: ‘Sorry, I fear so far we have only spent about $20’ and ‘I bought a coffee, it cost me $5. That’s all I did. So they wouldn’t like that’. Handbags and red dresses somehow seemed to become essential, and unforeseen diversions and distractions are on hand in the clubs, markets and elsewhere. For a couple from Queensland there were always distractions
God, we purchased, I don’t know, all sorts of things. Picture postcards, a bloody handbag, I bought another bag yesterday and jewellery, bags, postcards, that kind of stuff … lots of knick-knacks. Then we got really involved in gambling. I lost $50, I think. I could have bought another two souvenirs with that, couldn’t I, if I wasn’t so stupid.
Most visitors would not have been able to afford the occasional big ticket items on offer, such as the NSW registration plate ELVIS1 for which starting offers of $8000 were being optimistically sought.
Holding a Festival soon after Christmas was something of a disadvantage, even if many had paid for travel, accommodation and tickets long before. Other disincentives to spending could also occur: ‘Michael lost his job before Christmas so that’s why I’ve been very good and not spending, otherwise I’d have spent a lot more, I can tell you’.
People frequently spent much more than they’d intended to. The later in the week we carried out such surveys, the more people had spent. Ideally, expenditure surveys have to be done after the event, but by then the visitors have gone, in a final flourish of spending (or sometimes desperately saving).
Estimating how much of whatever is spent actually stays in Parkes is even more difficult. Hotels, petrol stations and supermarkets are part of national and international chains, and profits may disappear far away. Since almost everyone, except the Elvis train full of fans, comes by car or bus, and over long distances, petrol sales benefit various places. Hotels and restaurants are most obviously the primary local beneficiaries, since everyone eats and most find time to sleep, but direct benefits are also enjoyed by souvenir stores, local transport companies, market vendors and charities (who run raffles, cake stalls and barbecues). Portable toilets are very big business, as evocatively portrayed in the Australian film Kenny. These ‘portaloos’ tend to be rented through hire companies (such as the aptly named ‘1300 Dunnys’) that are organised territorially. Carting empty (and full) portable toilets a long way by truck can be expensive, messy, and not much fun in midsummer, so the market is broken up into regional providers. Intricate and ever-changing economic circuits support regional festivals.
Secondary benefits trickle down slowly and depend on how much visitor spending ‘stays local’ through subsequent circulation. Surpisingly at first glance, even solicitors, printers and furniture shops receive extra income beforehand, or somewhere down the line. Cars and people can break down, dogs get sick, and hardware stores and chemists reap the rewards: sunscreen sales do well; hangover cures, too. Few visitors will remember such crucial but incidental purchases. One chemist, who claimed to have doubled sales over the festival period, pointed to sunscreen as the single biggest seller.
Visitors found it hard to add it all up:
So we got the stubby holders and the festival bag. And the Lotto tickets, or something. Oh well, there you go, there’s another incidental. Oh and then the newsagent. Yeah, it’s interesting, you know, when you start thinking about it, when you’re on holidays, you do spend a fair bit without thinking.
One other form of expenditure was wholly forgotten. At the Gospel Service huge charity buckets were circulated that often came back almost full; yet, in all the many years in which categories of expenditure were recorded, just one visitor mentioned making an offering.
None of these complexities and distortions has prevented estimates frequently being made of just how valuable the festival is for Parkes, and it is certainly the biggest weekend of the year. In 2010 it was claimed to be worth $3 million; in 2011 the mayor estimated that it was worth about $5 million to the town’s economy. A year later it was recorded at $9 million. By 2015 the festival estimated that it brought an injection of over $13 million into the local economy, and $15 million was suggested for the next year. It was no exact science, but, like Festival numbers, the financial value of the festival was steadily increasing.
Taking Care of Business
The Festival made little money in its early years. Just a few motels and pubs really benefited. Simply keeping it going was a labour of love and achievement enough, and the volunteers and enthusiasts who did were unpaid. Quite probably that was one unspoken reason why the town was slow to support the festival. Had it not been for the efforts of enthusiastic volunteers, Parkes would never have prospered. By the time the first real surveys of expenditure were undertaken in 2004, the festival was doing well and the town was beginning to feel the benefits. Visitor surveys indicated the extent of the direct economic effects. During that year’s Festival, visitors spent an average of $440 per person over the festival weekend, which effectively meant an injection of over $1 million into Parkes. Accommodation (averaging $142 per person), food and drink ($134) and entertainment ($51) were the most common forms of expenditure, with smaller amounts spent on souvenirs ($43) and other services such as fuel ($28). For a country town, such injections are considerable, particularly when this initial expenditure flows through the local economy. A decade later, in 2015, visitors were spending substantially more locally than in previous years – scarcely surprising, because of increased prices (such as the cost of ticketed events, as more of the festival went indoors) and because they stayed longer.
What constantly surprised festival organisers was not that businesses were making money but that some businesses didn’t take part or change their pattern of activity to reap the benefits. Many of the shops that closed early on Saturdays were small businesses run by owner-operators who wanted family time, though some had tried to extend their hours and given up in frustration. The owner of a large grocery took on school students and ‘my 80-year-old parents – they don’t do much but they keep the store open’. Other businesses were unable to find extra workers or were unwilling to pay penalty wage rates. Even seemingly obvious beneficiaries such as bakeries sometimes found it hard to keep going: ‘We’d like to stay open on the Sunday but we have to pay pe
nalty rates. People need a break and we can’t get bakers on Sundays. It’s just not worth it, what with competition from food sellers in the park as well’. One pub that had stayed open rather longer and taken on extra staff had avoided such problems by ‘employing’ what they described as ‘a tag team of family connections’. So, on their best weekend of the year, they had gone through 40 kegs of beer and dozens of bottles of wine and spirits, which otherwise sold less well, while their restaurant ran out of cutlets. Only a few schnitzels survived the festival.
After the festival established Elvis Central, its own main street sales venue in a vacant shop, wigs, sunglasses and other souvenirs became powerful income earners, as fans seized the opportunity to dress up. Wigs with ebullient sideburns at least doubled up as sunshades. Everything from wine to postcards could be given an Elvis makeover. Some visitors, often returnees or from other small towns, focused on Elvis Central, believing this to be most beneficial for Parkes:
I try to support the festival, you know. I’ll try and buy something from Elvis Central every year ... It’s because I know that goes back to the organisers, to the council. The first year I was here I bought – they haven’t had them since so I’m really glad I got them – an apron and a tea towel with a peanut butter sandwich recipe on it. They should bring that back. Because people love it when they come to my house and they go ‘Oh my god, you’ve got the recipe and everything’.
Elvis Central had jumpsuits, caps and cups, key chains and rings, mints, and, of course, fridge magnets, and Elvis was on all of them. Priscilla eyelashes were big sellers. After being licensed by the global Elvis Presley Enterprises in 2016, souvenirs could be sourced from overseas but had to be adequately reverential and approved in Memphis. Stocks of merchandise with cartoons of Elvis – including the well-known one of Elvis using the Dish as a microphone – were deemed improper and had to be discarded, though they managed to find their way into op shops, or off to charities in East Timor. At the back of the store an Elvis photo booth had long queues throughout the weekend for those who wanted to be Elvis or Priscilla but were too shy or embarrassed to dress up beyond the studio. At least they could have almost 15 minutes of private fame. Just a back street away from Elvis Central, rather more suspicious characters were selling bootleg Elvis T-shirts (‘Mate, finest quality – double-stitched’) from the back of a battered ute. The Festival supported multiple beneficiaries.
Money Honey?
One way or another, visitors found a variety of ways of putting serious money into Parkes and its region. Long-distance visitors – the third of all visitors who came from Sydney and beyond – stayed several nights, and splashed out substantial sums of money, especially on evening shows. Many were ‘serious’ Elvis enthusiasts, often members of Elvis fan clubs and rock ’n’ roll clubs. It was their annual event. Their enthusiasm, and their staying and spending, were the core of the festival. Businesses loved them. By contrast, caravanners were reputed to be anything but big spenders, as ‘tight as the proverbial duck’s arse’, we were told, while it was ‘well-known that grey nomads live off the smell of an oily rag’. These two groups were often one and the same – older and with smaller incomes, little storage space and constantly on the move, so the observations probably carried weight.
In a town where car ownership is almost universal, Parkes’ usually small and quiet taxi services were busy as never before, and long into the night. Cafés and restaurants were constantly full, and spilled out onto the pavements as soon as that became possible. It was almost too easy. Heat and excitement made patrons thirsty; the only danger was running out. Restaurants, cafés and pubs acquired Elvis Menus and Elvisburgers, even if the food never changed. The White Rose café at Dunedoo offered an Elvis sandwich (‘Are You Hungry Tonight’) washed down with either a ‘GI Blues Milkshake’ or a ‘Bodgies Blood’: coke with ice-cream and strawberry flavouring. Names changed too; in 2015 Tupelo Tessies was offering sodas from Elvis’s own soda fountain, an unusual star of the festival.
Most businesses in Parkes are quite small and have only a few full-time employees, resulting in a considerable dependence on part-time and casual workers. A quarter of the 50 businesses we randomly surveyed in 2015 put on extra staff over the weekend, adding a total of 30 jobs to the town. Predictably, restaurants, cafes, hotels and motels accounted for most temporary positions, but additional staff were not always in the most obvious places. Soul Tree, off the main street, sold clothing, crystals, candles and similar goods. They had taken on two extra fortune tellers, and business was flourishing. Some businesses extended their opening hours. Saturday afternoons gradually became commercial opportunities and Sundays were less dead, though scarcely vibrant. The businesses that took on extra workers or stayed open longer were also those that depended on local suppliers and labour, so that the festival created local linkages, rather than relying on goods and services from distant Australian cities. Such neat multiplier effects meant that more of the income generated locally stayed and circulated locally.
Businesses that did particularly well not surprisingly included alcohol retailers: bottle shops had a boom weekend. BWS (Beer Wine and Spirits) was reputedly making $16 000 a day in 2015. Only Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve ran the festival close. Most businesses saw the festival weekend as not just good, but their best of the year. That was particularly true of the larger clubs, whose doors were constantly jammed with visitors signing themselves in. Restaurants and cafés claimed to double their business, hotels and motels switched on their rarely used ‘no vacancy’ signs, and other retail businesses (music stores, clothes shops, newsagents) reported substantial increases on normal trading levels. Qualitatively, too, things had changed. When we first visited in 2002 coffee was only available from an old-fashioned tea shop, which closed, as it had always done, at noon on Saturday. It offered instant coffee or tea; English Breakfast was radical, Earl Grey impossible, and herbal tea unheard of. By 2015 café culture had arrived; a couple of fully-fledged espresso cafés had opened, replete with inner-city hipsters, raw brick aesthetic, old couches and bearded and tattooed baristas.
It was not immediately obvious how some of the more sedate businesses might benefit, but benefit they did. Solicitors drew up contracts for hiring and insurance, accountants formally recorded the income flows, florists bloomed as cafés and restaurants became more decorative. Graphic designers came into their own with fliers, adverts and elaborate window displays. Yet for a Festival with an age range well above most, and where many visitors were active participants, one group missed out – the undertakers. Neither reported extra activity and there was no obvious trickle-down impact later on.
Some businesses claimed to have lost out, arguing that their turnover had declined over the festival period, and blamed visitors for blocking up doorways, taking away parking spots and deterring regular customers, and the council for cordoning off the centre of town. Their incomes had fallen, but only over the weekend. Without exception they depended on local custom for services that temporary visitors were unlikely to be particularly interested in – such as hairdressing, video rentals and veterinary services – although they all received some festival-goer custom. VideoEzy halved their staff as revenue decreased, but had their annual spike in sales of copies of The Dish. As one hairdresser said:
We were flat chat from Monday to Wednesday, with people getting ready – incredibly busy – but on Thursday and Friday it began to die a death and Saturday was our worst day in six weeks – but we did turn some blokes from Melbourne into Elvis. At this time of the year we’d probably be even more dead without Elvis.
Local people had purchased such services outside the festival period, preferring not to undertake them in the midst of Festival chaos and congestion. Old people especially were said to ‘bunker down for the weekend’. Before the mayhem the locals had their hair done (some in Priscilla style), got themselves tattooed, collected their prescriptions, stacked up the DVDs, filled the fridge and made sure the cattle dog was in good sh
ape. Afterwards, with jumpsuited exertions finally over, the dry-cleaners had a field day.
Shops selling goods unlikely to be of interest to festival-goers, such as furniture stores, were disappointed over sales, although in due course they would benefit. The owner of a jewellery store observed that ‘Most people don’t want to buy real jewellery in the midst of a festival. Many have spent a lot to get here and there’s not much left. But they keep the clubs afloat and it flows back to us later on’. They had also made money long before the festival by making and engraving the various trophies that were needed. The perspective from a men’s clothing store was somewhat different:
Almost no locals come in and 90 per cent of the sales are to visitors since we’ve come up with a nice line in Elvis shirts. We were the only people smart enough to embroider one that says ‘Celebrate Elvis’ 80th Birthday’. They were walking out the door.
Standard clothing products were temporarily pushed aside but when the school term started a month later the flow-on effects would mean more sales. A woollens shop was disappointed with sales but was philosophical: ‘We really do our best business in winter … and then this weekend’s expenditure will eventually trickle through my door’. Local shops were quite familiar with the theory and practice of multiplier effects.
