2025 Candlelight Vigil tonight!

[elvis4life]

As of now, only the Vimeo link has appeared. Sooner or later a Youtube link will follow. Starts at 8:30pm Memphis time, 9:30pm EST

https://vimeo.com/event/5292832/6452fa20da

[gilles-tcb]

I would have liked to be there. I've been twice in Memphis and Graceland and I participated to the Candlelight Vigil in ... "1927 I think it was"... no, it was in 1990
Some members of this forum are in Memphis tonight, for sure they will talk about this new forum and that is very good !

[elvis4life]

It's on Youtube now

[BrianTCB]

Thank you for posting, @elvis4life. I'll never forget my visit to Graceland during Elvis Week, 2012. Hopefully, I can do a remake of that visit in 2027.

[elvis-fan]

Does anyone have a sense of how many people turned out for the vigil this year? Just curious of the numbers over previous years...

[The Baystar dude]

Various sources speak about a few hundred attending the Candlelight Vigil.

The Baystar dude

[elvis4life]

Does anyone have a sense of how many people turned out for the vigil this year? Just curious of the numbers over previous years...

Look for where it says "She and other Elvis Country members were in a staff parking lot, unloading tall garden torches from a vehicle, out of sight of the several thousand gathering in the street or already in line at the Graceland gates. (According to Graceland officials, about 10,000 people took part in the vigil — about the same number as in 2024.)"

https://www.commercialappeal.com/story/ ... 530193007/

Fans honor Elvis during Candlelight Vigil at Graceland: 'We cannot let him be forgotten'
John Beifuss
Memphis Commercial Appeal

Sonya Reid, 62, who has come from London to Memphis for the Candlelight Vigil at Graceland every year since 2012, is covered in Elvis ink.

The photorealism of her Presley tattoos is startling.

On Reid's right arm is an image of Elvis from the late 1960s. On her left arm is a reproduction of a famous Elvis semi-profile portrait from the 1950s.

On one forearm is the image of Elvis' only child, Lisa Marie Presley. On another forearm is Elvis' comic book hero, Captain Marvel Jr.

Sonya Reid, with a tattoo of Elvis Presley on her arm, poses for a portrait outside the gates of Graceland before the start of the Candlelight Vigil on Aug. 15. Reid, a fan who traveled from London, England, says she has attended the event every year since 2012.
And on her back is a copy of the earliest known photograph of Elvis, taken when he was a child of about 2, in Tupelo. This is the country boy Elvis, in overalls and a floppy wide-brimmed hat, looking like a future farmer, not a future singing sensation and Hollywood star whose talent and appeal would continue to bring thousands of people to his Memphis home every year, even almost a half-century after his death.

Why has Reid done this? Why has she made her body a gallery for Elvis art?

"Because the only thing you can take to the grave is — that," she said, extending an arm an etched with the sideburns and curled lip of the King of Rock 'n' Roll, to demonstrate that her skin is a canvas of Elvis portraiture. "I want to keep him close to me."

Outside the gates of Graceland on the night of Aug. 15, Elvis art was everywhere: on bodies, on T-shirts, on dresses, and on the street, as fans constructed shrines honoring Elvis Presley on the asphalt and concrete of Elvis Presley Boulevard.

The street was closed to traffic, as it is every Aug. 15, so that thousands of fans from around the world could gather in front of the Graceland mansion in anticipation of the annual Candlelight Vigil, a commemoration of Elvis' death at age 42 on Aug. 16, 1977.

With lighted candles in hand, the fans make their way up the driveway of the mansion to the Meditation Garden where Elvis and other family members (including Lisa Marie) are buried or interred. The solemn and orderly procession typically lasts into the wee hours of Aug. 16. Even as the street outside is covered with chalk drawings of Elvis and makeshift Elvis dioramas, the driveway and gravesite by the end of the vigil are lined with elaborate floral arrangements, some in the shapes of hound dogs and guitars, and with cards identifying them with fans from all over the globe.

The now-famous vigil has a grassroots origin. It was initiated the year after Elvis' death by the Elvis Country Fan Club of Texas, whose members continue to function as ceremonial gatekeepers for the event.

"We cannot let him be forgotten," explained Houston resident Gail Starrett, 66, who was at the first vigil in 1978.

She and other Elvis Country members were in a staff parking lot, unloading tall garden torches from a vehicle, out of sight of the several thousand gathering in the street or already in line at the Graceland gates. (According to Graceland officials, about 10,000 people took part in the vigil — about the same number as in 2024.)

Decorated by Angel Durham in what she called "Elvis bling," the torches are key to the ritual. Two of the torches are carried to the "eternal flame" at Elvis' grave in the Meditation Garden. They are set alight by the flame, and then those torches are carried to the gate, to light Elvis Country's other two torches. Vigil participants light their candles from the torches, so that each person carries the light of Elvis' eternal flame.

"There's only one Elvis, and that's it," said Durham, 55, of Amarillo. As if discussing a flame, she said: "He'll never die out. The fans won't let him."

"Once you get the bug, that's it," added Ron Norfolk, 61, of Freetown, Massachusetts, explaining his Elvis infatuation.

Other fan clubs provide members to serve as the vigil's "honor guard." These people line up along the driveway, holding candles and providing assistance, as needed.

For some, honor guard duty is a family affair. Sarahlea McGrath, 47, and her children, Grace, 15, and Jack 10, who live in Manchester, England, are members of "The Official Elvis Presley Fan Club UK," and "are really proud to do this as representatives of our country," Sarahlea McGrath said.

A lifelong Elvis fan, she first visited Graceland on her 18th birthday (the trip was a present from her mother, also an Elvis fan). "I was hooked," she said. The kids represent a third generation of Elvis fandom in the family. "It's a lot of standing, but it's worth it," said Grace, of the honor guard duty.

"It feels like a second home to us," said Sarahlea McGrath, who married her husband, Colin, in the Graceland chapel. "Memphis has always welcomed us with open arms. We've met so many nice people through Elvis."

McGrath's comments anticipated the themes that Graceland officials would repeat in their remarks to launch the official start of the vigil, at 8:30 p.m. Undaunted by the muggy, 90-degree heat, Jack Soden, the longtime CEO of Elvis Presley Enterprises, called the vigil "my favorite event of the year." The event, he said, demonstrates that Elvis continues to bring people together in love and harmony, even in a "world that is so divided about so many things."

Next, Joel Weinshanker, EPE's managing partner, suggested that the best way to "honor Elvis' legacy" in today's "crazy world" is to treat people with kindness and respect, to help bring about the world that Elvis wanted, as suggested by the singer's interest in religion and philosophy.