Warst du schon mal in Graceland?

Dann verabschiede dich jetzt von allem, was du dort jemals gesehen hast, denn Sillerman hat Pläne, die über Las Vegas hinauswachsen könnten!



Hier der Artikel, der heute in der New York Times erschienen ist:

MEMPHIS

WINTER is the off-season at Graceland, Elvis Presley's home from 1957 until his death there, at 42, in 1977. On a recent weekday, only a few visitors wandered through the home and its 13.8-acre grounds, wearing headphones and listening to a recorded tour guide. In the colonnaded "Meditation Garden," a middle-aged man in an Elvis T-shirt perched on a bench next to Elvis's grave.

Not much has changed at Graceland, a reverentially preserved 21-room Colonial Revival-style mansion, since Elvis's former wife, Priscilla Presley, opened it to the public 24 years ago. Video projectors beam low-tech videos of a sweaty, singing, hip-swiveling Elvis onto walls. In a racquetball court behind the house, dozens of his gold records, along with various sequined jumpsuits and trophies, are on display. And, of course, there is the Jungle Room — the wood-paneled den famously decorated in skins and skulls and green shag carpeting.

Revenue at Elvis Presley Enterprises, which operates Graceland, has barely changed in recent years, either. It has been stuck at about $40 million annually since 2000, and money for improving the property has been scarce.

That is all about to change. And when the change is over, Graceland may look a lot like Disneyland.

Starting this month, Robert F. X. Sillerman, the billionaire media entrepreneur who paid more than $100 million in 2005 for control of Elvis's name and likeness — but not his music — plans to overhaul Graceland from a run-down tourist attraction into a sparkling destination resort.

The 128-room Heartbreak Hotel, which stands across Elvis Presley Boulevard from Graceland, will be demolished, along with the visitors center. In their place, Mr. Sillerman plans two 400-room hotels, convention space, an entertainment complex, restaurants, shops, an outdoor amphitheater and a spa.

Moreover, if Mr. Sillerman has his way, Elvis will become a big presence again in Las Vegas, in an interactive museum exhibit and Elvis theme show that Mr. Sillerman hopes will attract millions of visitors a year. Tapping Elvis's international popularity is next: Mr. Sillerman envisions a 15,000-square-foot exhibit that will travel around the world.

And you thought Elvis was dead.

"He has sort of been in a holding pattern," said Mr. Sillerman, 57. "He has maintained the status as the icon that he is without any thought about his legacy, his legend and how we could take advantage of that."

With all the enthusiasm of a new homeowner, Mr. Sillerman, wearing cufflinks stamped with an image of Elvis, zipped through Graceland on a mission of his own last month, rapidly pointing out the things he wants to do once the renovations begin. He wants to expand the museum space, which is cramped. He is irritated by small details, like the jumbled layout of the house tour, which can lead visitors to a dead end.

But most important, Mr. Sillerman, who made his fortune by building and selling a chain of radio stations and then a concert-promotion business, wants to make Graceland a "multiday experience," not the two-hour walk-through it is now. He wants people to "stay as long as possible" — and, of course, to spend as much as they can.

Mr. Sillerman says he believes that Elvis Presley Enterprises has not used Elvis to his full potential, by a long shot. And now that Mr. Sillerman controls 85 percent of the company — Lisa Marie Presley, Elvis's daughter and sole heir, retains the remaining 15 percent — he now has power over Elvis's name and likeness as well as his house, its grounds and about 65 adjoining acres.

What Mr. Sillerman does not have are the rights to Elvis's music, which Elvis's manager, Col. Tom Parker, sold back to Elvis's record label, RCA, which was later acquired by Sony BMG. Colonel Parker and Mr. Presley split $5.4 million from the sale but gave up all future royalties — a mistake that Mr. Sillerman called "colossal."

If the plans materialize, the new Graceland compound will be very different from the one already visited by millions of fans. The small gift shop may be expanded into a retail complex full of Elvis memorabilia. CKX, Mr. Sillerman's entertainment company (the letters stand for "content is king"), says it has warehouses groaning with 600,000 pieces of Elvisiana, including a barber chair from Graceland, a jukebox from his home in Palm Springs, Calif., and movie contracts he signed.

Because Mr. Sillerman's company, which is publicly traded, also owns the "American Idol" franchise, it has a ready supply of musicians who could perform at the planned amphitheater. A CKX spokesman, Edmund Tagliaferri, said that Mr. Sillerman was prepared to spend "whatever it takes" to improve the compound.

The King's Legacy, All Shook Up



The promise has excited many Graceland veterans. "We've been thinking about this stuff for so long, but now we can actually do it," said Jack Soden, the chief executive of Elvis Presley Enterprises, whom Priscilla Presley hired to oversee the family's business in 1981, a year before Graceland opened to the public.

While mapping out the renovations, Mr. Sillerman has been courting Graceland's guardians, including its second-most-famous former resident, Priscilla. When her daughter, Lisa Marie, struck the deal with CKX, Mrs. Presley gave up any commercial rights to Graceland and the Presley name and received $6.5 million in return. She is involved with plans for the renovations, though she has no financial stake in the project.

"It's very emotional for my daughter and for myself," Mrs. Presley said in a phone interview. "It's our baby. It's an emotional ride. We've grown with it, and it's a very personal experience for us."

While in Memphis two weeks ago, Mr. Sillerman met with local officials, including Willie W. Herenton, the city's mayor, and AC Wharton Jr., the mayor of Shelby County, to sell them on his plan, which has been drawn up by Bob Weis Design Island Associates, an Orlando firm that also designed the revamped observation deck at the top of Rockefeller Center.

HE was warmly received. The Memphis Regional Chamber, a business group, invited him to breakfast, and Representative Harold E. Ford Jr., the Memphis-area Democrat, invited him to lunch with some prominent businessmen. (Between glances at his BlackBerry, Mr. Ford praised Mr. Sillerman's "vision and commitment.")

One local business leader, Fred Jones Jr., a part-owner of the Memphis Grizzlies basketball team and the president of SMC Entertainment, a concert organizer with offices down the street from Graceland, was particularly enthusiastic. "The effect it's going to have on everybody's business in Memphis is tremendous," he said. "We've never had the resources to actually get it done."

So far, opponents to the plan, if there are any, have been quiet.

Even though Elvis's original fans are aging, the brand is still potent, said Robert K. Passikoff, the president of Brand Keys, a research firm in New York.

"You're not talking about a celebrity whose time came and went," Mr. Passikoff said. "You're talking about a real icon. You may have to update the environment in which you position him, but I think you're still looking at something that has very visceral and resonating values among people today."

For tourists on foot, crossing the buzzing traffic on Elvis Presley Boulevard is a dangerous proposition. Mr. Sillerman wants to tear down the existing visitors center and build a new one next to the house, so that visitors don't have to cross the road. Weddings could also be bigger business under CKX: a tiny wedding chapel in the woods next to the house would be expanded to a larger "wedding pavilion" to accommodate at least 300 weddings a year.

"We didn't used to allow weddings here, but people would just buy tickets to visit and then conduct the ceremony on the spot," Mr. Soden said. "We couldn't stop them."

Mr. Sillerman said he thought that the appeal of Graceland would easily transfer to Las Vegas, a city that teems with Elvis impersonators. "If you walk through Graceland, it screams to you, 'Take me to Vegas! Take me to Vegas!' " Mr. Sillerman said between bites of lox while flying to New York on his corporate jet.

In Nevada, he said, CKX plans to announce this month that it will open an interactive exhibit and Elvis-theme cabaret show on one of two pieces of property on the Las Vegas Strip. Though Mr. Sillerman declined to say whether a hotel and casino would be added, Mrs. Presley suggested that those could follow: "We have talked about having a presence in Las Vegas, hotel-wise, for many, many years," she said.

Some people in Las Vegas may be less than thrilled with CKX's plans. For decades, Elvis Presley Enterprises has allowed impersonators to use Elvis's name and likeness free, because they considered it good marketing, but CKX may not follow suit.

Don Medve, a spokesman for the Las Vegas Tourist Bureau, said that there were at least 50 full-time Elvis impersonators — not counting weekend or part-time Elvises — who worked primarily in wedding chapels and charged about $150 for a 20-minute ceremony.

"Pretty much every single chapel in Las Vegas has their own Elvis," Mr. Medve said. "Generally, he sings three songs, walks the bride down the aisle and gives her his Elvis scarf. Some Elvises do three or four weddings in one day."

Mr. Sillerman said the fate of the impersonators was still undecided. "If we were going to do a show that was based on Elvis impersonators, then obviously it wouldn't make sense to have unauthorized Elvis impersonators," he said.

At least one privately owned Elvis business is not surviving. CKX is acquiring and shutting down Elvis-A-Rama, a popular museum and gift shop off the Strip.

AND Mr. Sillerman sees a lot of potential outside the United States. Each year, 600,000 visitors pay from $22 to $55 for a tour of Graceland, and about 30 percent of them are foreigners. That has him thinking about taking the Elvis franchise abroad in the next couple of years, perhaps with an interactive exhibit that would move from city to city every few months.

Clearly, Mr. Sillerman has faith in Elvis's staying power. "It's hard for people today to realize how popular he was and the impact on American culture," he said. "Was he a revolutionary? Somebody smarter than me will have to figure that out."