EPE warned about ETAs contest: A high-ranking official with RCA/BMG records has twice told Elvis World, in private, that in a planning session with EPE for Elvis Week 2007, the record company strongly advised against EPE starting its own Elvis impersonator contest.

"We told them that if they got into the impersonator (ETA) business, all the press would flock to the Elvis look-alikes and would forget everything else. When they insisted they push ahead, we (RCA/BMG) felt like we didn't want to come out with some special release for the 30th anniversary because it would get lost in all the hoopla the press would be giving to the impersonators."

WELL, FOLKS, the warning has proven true! You don't pick up a local Memphis newspaper, or turn on a local TV channel, without seeing Elvis impersonators everywhere you look.

They're everywhere! They're everywhere!

And, of course, media cameras always seek out the heaviest-set, ugliest ones with the worst looking sideburns. One on TV last night sang a few bars of an Elvis song and I felt my TV screen was going to shatter! Even at the new Elvis Expo at the Cook Convention Center downtown, they are there entertaining and there's even an Elvis karaoke which attracts them like flies to a dumpster !

SO ... RCA/BMG seems to have known what it was talking about.

The new Elvis Expo has dealer tables covering over 35,000 square feet of space. Heretofore, dealers have been limited to independent productions at the Clarion Hotel and Airport Inn. Now, with the advent of Elvis Expo, we'd venture to say the independent Elvis "conventions" may soon be a thing of the past.

ONE WORD can be used to describe Elvis Week 2007: Commercialism! Or maybe two words: ELVIS COMMERCIALISM !!

And this is nothing but a preview of what is to come. Whereas the independent dealers' "Elvis conventions" cost $2 at the door; the Elvis Expo charges $15. And being downtown, add another $10 or so for parking.
(News, Source: Bill E. Burk)