Annual Elvis Festival Cancelled

Updated: January 6, 2017

Poor Health and Renovations of Museum Force Postponement Until 2018, Vega to Release Book This Year

The 2017 Elvis Festival, hosted by Little Graceland and Simon Vega in Los Fresnos, Texas scheduled for January 14th has been cancelled. Simon Vega, who has hosted the Elvis Festival for 30 plus years, has been hospitalized for health reasons. He is hopeful his health will be better that he will be able to promote and host the 2018 Elvis Festival in January 2018.

Vega’s book “Service with the King” which covers his time serving in the Army with Elvis Presley and his association with Elvis will be published and available for purchase in February 2017.

Vega is hopeful his health will improve so that he will be able to do a book signing event yet this winter.

The Little Graceland Elvis Presley Museum at 701 West Ocean Blvd, Los Fresnos, Texas is being moved to the ground floor and is currently under renovation. Vega is hopeful the renovations will be completed soon and the museum will be reopened for tours.

Vega, who was born October 8, 1935 and is a retired high school teacher, became a personal friend of singer Elvis Presley while the two served together in the United States Army in Germany from 1958—1960.

In 1978, a year after Presley’s early death, Vega composed a song, “The Ballad of Elvis Presley”. He produced three thousand copies and has five remaining ones for his personal collection.

In 1993, Vega turned his house into a museum called “Little Graceland” located in his native Los Fresnos in Cameron County north of Brownsville, Texas. “Little Graceland” is loosely patterned on Presley’s mansion, Graceland, in Memphis, Tennessee. Little Graceland is a home converted into a shrine to the man dubbed “The King” of rock and roll music. The museum contains many pictures of Presley, some with Vega, which the museum owner considers among his most prized possessions.

Vega, with assistance from the Los Fresnos Area Chamber of Commerce and the City of Los Fresnos, holds the Elvis festival annually in January, the month of Presley’s birth. The festivities include live music, food and beverages, a lookalike contest, a sing-alike competition, automobile shows, trivia questions, and museum tours. The highlight of the festivities are the impersonators that come from far and wide to perform the Elvis hits on stage.

If you would like more information regarding Vega’s book or the museum, contact Rosie at 956-233-5482.