September 25, 2023 · Entertainment Las Vegas 636 837 Barry Manilow Col. Tom Parker concerts Elvis Presley how many shows International International Hotel Las Vegas Hilton

VEGAS MYTHS BUSTED: Elvis Performed 837 Sold-Out Vegas Shows

Sorry, Barry Manilow. You didn’t beat Elvis Presley’s record for successive sell-outs at the Westgate in Las Vegas this weekend. According to a plaque on showing at that really cassino resort, you noneffervescent hold 200 concerts left hand to frolic there.

Just kidding, Barry Manilow. The figure on the plaque is a hunka hunka combustion crap.

On Sept. 8, 1978, secretive to the year day of remembrance of Presley’s death, then-Las Vegas Hilton owner Barron Hilton unveiled a bronze statue of the Martin Luther King — sculpted by Carl Romanelli — as the flood tide of a Hilton normal called “Always Elvis.”

Elvis statue unveiling
Vernon Presley (Elvis’ father), Priscilla Elvis Presley (his ex-wife) and Barron Hilton (Paris Hilton’s grandfather) chat next the unveiling of the Elvis statue, and its erroneous plaque, inward 1978. (Image: Reddit)

According to the plaque attached to the statue’s base, Elvis performed a register 837 successive sold-out shows at the hotel, which opened as the International, from July 1969 through Dec 1976.

That list is 201 sold-out performances to a greater extent than Elvis in reality gave.

Some say Hilton — who purchased the International from possessor Kirk Kerkorian only when a yr into Elvis’ eight-year residence — inflated the identification number of concerts Elvis played to cover up upwards egregious flack cipher violations.

If Elvis had indeed played to 2.5 jillion people, as the plaque claims, that would hold meant the saleroom was packed way of life beyond its reported capacity of 1,150. Even at 837 concerts, that’s 2,986 people per show. But that’s noneffervescent improve than admitting that, at 636 shows, 3,930 people were allowed inwards at a time.

The Manager Did It

An as plausible account is that both the shows and their number audience were overdone inwards number past someone who specialized inward exaggerations.

Not only when was Col. Tom Parker secretly an illegal immigrant from the Kingdom of The Netherlands — which is why he is believed to feature ne'er allowed Elvis to circuit outdoors the U.S. — but Elvis’ longtime manager ne'er served as a colonel inwards any organization.

Two and a half jillion Elvis fans can’t be wrong, but plaques tin can be. (Image: amazon.com)

If Elvis was the B. B. King of John Rock n’ Roll, and so Parker was the B. B. King of BS.

What’s a duad hundred additional shows going to matter when nobody’s going to bother counting them all up, anyway?

Suspicious Mind

Except that someone did bother counting them all up. When the Westgate purchased the property, which had been briefly known as the LVH, it sought to drama upward its historic Elvis connection.

In 2015, the casino resort hotel debuted “Graceland Presents Elvis: The Exhibition, the Show, the Experience,” which yet offered guided tours of the facility — including what was left of the King’s former 30th-floor penthouse.

Elvis Presley
Elvis Elvis Aron Presley makes ane of his first of 636 appearances at the former International Hotel inwards Las Vegas in 1969. (Image: thetimes.co.uk)

Because the attractive force was a articulate production with Graceland and Elvis Presley Enterprises, Graceland’s chief archivist, Angie Marchese, took it upon herself to wee-wee sure the exhibit got all its facts straight. And the 837 fig just now didn’t append up. Again and again, Marchese manually counted the records of every Elvis execution at the International and Las Vegas Hilton and, over again and again, arrived at 636.

The track record was corrected, but the plaque ne'er was. Its misinformation allay gets repeated inward social media posts, and in articles that germ info published before Marchese’s scrutinise band the book straight.

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