They may not have realised it at the time but the Parkes rugby union players who took it upon themselves to dress as Elvis when the Parkes Elvis Festival was in its infancy, had started a movement. And even to this day, they're still a little lost for words when told of the real impact they've had. When the festival started in 1993, no one dressed up as Elvis - only those who were competing in look-a-like competitions or performing, and even then most would change into and out of their outfits just prior and after the show. Pulling on a star-studded jumpsuit and wearing it for the duration of the festival came as a bit of fun for the rugby boys, who were all young, single men at the time. Initially it started as part of their social club activities, the gentlemen's club they called it, which formed in 1995. Their first festival was 1996. "The rugby union boys were instrumental in engendering the spirit and fun of the festival," one of the festival founders Roel ten Cate said. "They were the life of the festival, things never kicked-off until they came along," fellow founder Anne Steel added. "People would be waiting for them, and their numbers got bigger, they kept coming back with more and more each year," Anne said. They became an enormous novelty, mini celebrities as Wayne Osborne, one of those players, once described it. "We saw an opportunity the festival could be so much more than it was," Wayne said "It was an opportunity to inject more fun into it - we saw people sit back and watch, and not participate," teammate Richard Rice added. Wayne met up with some of his rugby mates originally involved in the festival - such as Richard, Scott Morrissey, Chris Summerhayes and Craig Rusten - to reflect on those early years and some very unique memories. Scott even brought along with him, safely-kept wrapped in tissue paper in a box and all, their gentlemen's club's minutes book he dug out of the archives. Their movement began with eight of them - Wayne said it was only ever eight because that's the most jumpsuits they could hire from the east coast of NSW. It became an annual road trip to Sydney where the men raided every dress-up shop from Broadway west to Parkes back in the pre-online days to ensure they were all decked out for the festival. "We could only get so many suits... When one of us called it a night and left the festivities early, we told them you have to leave your suit here," Wayne laughed. "He'd have to walk home in his underwear and then there'd be three or four blokes fighting over who would wear the jumpsuit next, 'me, I'm next!' "This day and age you just go and order online - some of us eventually went to a local dressmaker and had suits custom-made." Richard said you had to get there early when the boys would meet up ahead of the festival to get the best suits. "It was free for all," Chris added. "One year one of the boys had a suit that was too small, he wasn't happy about it!" "We went from eight to 10 to 12 people as suits became more available and we got our own," Wayne said. "When the American dollar crumbled, we all went nuts!" Chris laughed. As you can imagine the men were met with some rather odd reactions at first in those early years, even disapproval from hard-core fans who thought they were poking fun at their idol. "It was never about mocking, it was about joining in and bringing some fun," Wayne said. "It was very obvious the town didn't support it (the festival). "You'd walk down the main street and it was business as usual, people didn't know a festival was on. "We carried a boombox with us with Elvis songs on a cassette because when we walked into a pub down the street, we asked them to put on some Elvis music, they said they didn't have any. "So we'd bring our own - we'd walk in and there'd just be people sitting around, watching the TAB and the publican would ask 'what are you's doing?' And we'd say it's the Elvis Festival." And now, 30 years later, it would be weird if you didn't dress up during the festival.
