Coming Home Music, the company that, in collaboration with EPE, produced and distributes the excellent documentary He Touched Me – The Gospel Music of Elvis Presley, was offered the opportunity to produce and distribute a DVD of the 25th Anniversary Concert. The DVD will focus on Act 2 of the concert, which was much like the road show Elvis-The Concert (now known as Elvis Presley In Concert), plus material from the gospel segment from Act 1. Exact content details will be shared soon, once the editing is finalized.

The DVD will be available on ShopElvis.com, in Graceland visitor center stores and through typical DVD distribution outlets, and it will be available as part of the merchandise offering on tours of Elvis Presley In Concert. Also, repeating part of their successful marketing plan for He Touched Me, Coming Home Music is working with PBS (Public Broadcasting System) stations around the country to air the 25th Anniversary Concert. Some of the stations could choose to air it during their "pledge week" funding drives as they have with the gospel documentary. WKNO, the PBS affiliate in Memphis, has already confirmed plans to feature the concert for the first time during an August 2006 pledge week. Airings on other TV stations are slated for the months and years ahead. (The TV version will be a bit shorter on content than the DVD.)


ANTICIPATED FAQs

Why just Act 2 and Gospel and not the entire show?
To maximize distribution of this DVD, Coming Home Music had to make sure it could get it into mass-market retail outlets that will not sell a DVD that goes past the $14.98 price point. Without getting into those major outlets, paying all the clearances for non-EPE footage used in our very long show and paying for clearances from all the singers, musicians, music publishers et al, plus production costs for a longer program, would have put a DVD of the complete show into a budget realm that would have made that $14.98 price point impossible.

Act 1 focused mostly on 50s/60s movie and TV footage for which isolated Elvis vocal tracks, essential for proper "Elvis-interactivity" with the live band, do not exist, unlike Act 2, which focused on 1970s concert material for which isolated Elvis vocal tracks are available. The 50s/60s segments of Act 1 were highly enjoyable for those present for the live concert event, but from a theatrical standpoint, the excitement doesn’t translate to DVD and TV viewing as beautifully as the 1970s concert material of Act 2 and the gospel segment from Act 1. Within the budgetary limitations on clearances and on the run time of the DVD, it was determined that focusing on Act 2 and the gospel segment would give the audience the best possible viewing experience if the complete concert event could not be on the disc.

Will the 25th Anniversary Concert air television outside the United States?
We don’t know yet.

On what date and in what formats will the DVD be available outside of North America?
We will let you know when Coming Home Music lets us know.

Will there be a DVD release of the 20th Anniversary Concert in Memphis called Elvis In Concert '97?
There are no plans for a release of the 1997 show. We did shoot an "archival" video of it, but the picture quality, and particulary the sound quality, turned out not be at a high enough level to warrant a release. The Elvis fan/collector market that would respond enthusiastically to this type of archival video is too small to cover all the costs of footage, performer and music publishing clearances, production/distribution costs, etc. But, the footage does exist for history and it has been very useful in putting together videos to explain our touring show to potential promoters and to incorporate into TV ads for some of our concert tours. (And , of course, many of you have found it out there on bootleg due in the form of sneaky audience recordings and in good form due to an apparent betrayal by someone who had access to the show taping we did.)

EPE is planning a live concert production of the magnitude of the 1997 and 2002 shows for August 16, 2007 – Elvis: The 30th Anniversary Concert. Will there be a DVD release from this show?
We hope so. This could depend in no small part on how well the Elvis: The 25th Anniversary Concert DVD sells. Coming Home Music or another distributor would have to have faith that they could recoup their investment and turn a profit. EPE does plan to shoot and record the event properly for history's sake, regardless of the status of a potential DVD release.  Elvis: The 30th Anniversary Concert will take place on August 16th as part of Elvis Week 2007.

Will there be a DVD release from the tours of Elvis Presley In Concert (a.k.a. Elvis-The Concert)?
There are no plans for such a release, although some shooting/recording was done over the years. The 25th Anniversary Concert in 2002 is the most elaborate production of the Elvis-interactive concert concept to date  and had a much larger cast of  Elvis bandmates than we have on our road show. A DVD release of that show is the optimum choice for delivering the experience to you and the best bet for DVD sales. But, perhaps some of the road show footage could end up part of a project someday. We don't know. We'll see.