What Parkes is known for
Parkes is a New South Wales town about 355 km west of Sydney, with 9,832 people in its urban centre at the 2021 census. It is known for a festival built around a singer with no local tie: Elvis Presley never visited Australia or Parkes. Every January the town runs the Parkes Elvis Festival, and festival director Brendan Shipley reported 26,000 people at the 2026 event.
Gracelands, a birthday party, and a slow month
In 1981 Bob and Anne Steel opened a restaurant and function centre called Gracelands, named for a family trip to Disneyland on which they never made it to Graceland itself. In 1992 Champion Post editor Roel Tencate suggested an Elvis festival at a birthday party held there. August was proposed first, but Anne Steel argued for January, because that was when local business was slow.
The first Parkes Elvis Festival opened with a dinner at Gracelands on 8 January 1993 and drew 195 people, nearly all of them locals, apart from one woman who had travelled from Adelaide. Elvis Revival Inc, formed that same year with Bob Steel as president, paid its way through lamington drives, raffles and memorabilia sales.
A record set in 2007, and beaten in 2014
In 2007 a group of 147 performers at Parkes set a Guinness World Record for the largest gathering of Elvis impersonators in one place. The record did not last: Guinness now credits 895 people at Harrah’s Cherokee Casino Resort in North Carolina, set on 12 July 2014.
Parkes Shire Council took over running the festival in 2014, and in 2015 a licence from Elvis Presley Enterprises made it an officially sanctioned event. Elvis Revival Inc, the volunteer group that had built and funded the festival from the start, dissolved in late 2022.
Wiradjuri Country, and a telescope that watched the moon landing
Parkes stands on Wiradjuri Country, and Parkes Shire Council acknowledges the Wiradjuri people as traditional owners and custodians of the land. In November 2020, during NAIDOC Week, Wiradjuri Elders gave the town’s 64 metre radio telescope the name Murriyang, the Skyworld of the creator spirit Biyaami. The telescope, completed in 1961, relayed television pictures of the Apollo 11 moonwalk to the world.
Transport for NSW has since invited local Aboriginal artists to design permanent artworks for the Parkes Bypass, with submissions opening in September 2024.
Questions people ask about Parkes
Why is Parkes, New South Wales famous?
Parkes is famous for the Parkes Elvis Festival, a January festival built around a singer who never visited Australia. The town is also home to the Parkes radio telescope, which relayed television pictures of the Apollo 11 moonwalk to the world.
When did the Parkes Elvis Festival start?
The first Parkes Elvis Festival opened with a dinner at Gracelands on 8 January 1993. It drew 195 people, nearly all of them locals, apart from one woman who had travelled from Adelaide.
Did Elvis Presley ever visit Parkes or Australia?
No. Elvis Presley never visited Australia or Parkes, so the festival was never built on a personal tie. Anyone can play him, and every January in Parkes, hundreds do.
Does Parkes still hold the record for the largest gathering of Elvis impersonators?
Not any more. In 2007 a group of 147 performers at Parkes set a Guinness World Record for the largest gathering of Elvis impersonators. Guinness now credits a 2014 gathering of 895 people at Harrah's Cherokee Casino Resort in North Carolina with the record.