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<\/div>\n<\/div>\nSee the artists in action at Memphis Tattoo Festival at Graceland<\/p>\n
The Memphis Tattoo Festival, which typically attracts some 2,000 body-art enthusiasts, kicked off April 10, 2026, at the Graceland Exhibition Center.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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In the 1950s, Elvis Presley<\/a> was accused by some critics of being “a definite danger to the security of the United States” (to quote a letter in the FBI’s Elvis file).<\/p>\n The singer promoted delinquency and immorality with his “lascivious contortions” (so said the Louisville chief of police), his “tribal rhythms” (the archbishop of Chicago), and his “greasy” sideburns (a Des Moines newspaper columnist). He rode motorcycles and wore black leather jackets. In the movie “King Creole,”<\/a> he flashed a switchblade.<\/p>\n Yet Elvis did not entirely match the stereotypical image of the 1950s rockabilly rebel. Notably, Elvis never had a tattoo. Skin-wise, he was a blank slate.<\/p>\n “I’d probably give him a peanut butter-and-banana sandwich,” mused artist Madelynne Caldwell, 23, of Midtown’s Hands of Mercy Tattoo Parlor, when asked what image she would have suggested if she’d had a chance to ink the King. “I’ve done some questionable meal tattoos, but never a peanut butter-and-banana sandwich.”<\/p>\n Tattoo artist Katie Rhoden, 33, of the Black Pelican Tattoo Studio in Harahan, Louisiana, was less whimsical. “I think I would give him a portrait of Lisa Marie<\/a>,” she said. “He’d like that.”<\/p>\n Discussions of Elvis and tattoos are inevitable this weekend, as the Memphis Tattoo Festival<\/a> \u2014 an annual convention that typically attracts some 2,000 body-art enthusiasts to the Bluff City \u2014 convened for the first time at the Graceland Exhibition Center, across the street from the Elvis Presley mansion<\/a>.<\/p>\n Tattoos and Elvis are both pop-culture phenomena with obsessive fan bases, so Graceland seemed a natural fit for the third annual festival, which began at 1 p.m. Friday, April 10, and concludes at 7 p.m. Sunday, April 12. (Previous festivals were held Downtown, at the Renasant Convention Center.)<\/p>\n “Elvis is still rock ‘n’ roll, Elvis is still iconic America, and that definitely has a symbiosis with tattooing,” said Quinn Hurley, director of operations for Tattoo Fest\/Explorer Tattoo, a company that organizes tattoo conventions in cities across the country.<\/p>\n