AFTER a record breaking visit to Bendigo, Elvis has left the building.
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Bendigo Art Gallery staff began packing up the exhibition on Monday after almost 220,000 people visited the show during its four-month run.
Most noticeably, the gallery's facade return to its tradition red brick look as the gold sequins and iconic Elvis lights came down.
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Graceland vice president of archives and exhibits Angie Marchese and Bendigo Art Gallery curatorial manager Lauren Ellis oversaw the exhibition being packed up.
Ms Ellis said the team had mixed emotion about seeing Elvis go.
"It's been a huge amount of work, the team is pretty ready for a rest," she said. "So on the one hand, there's a great sense of relief and excitement but it was such a big success we'll all be really sad to farewell Elvis and these special objects."
Ms Marchese has visited Bendigo three times in the past four months in her role with Graceland.
"I was here when the artifacts arrived, to unpack and condition them and start to set up the display, then I was here for opening with Priscilla and now I'm back to take everything home," she said.
"We got started immediately on Monday morning with conditioning reports and starting to take things off display and making sure that everything is in good shape so we can pack it up and ship it home.
"Everything's come down in the condition it was set up in and everything's perfect. So now all we have to do is just box it up and take it home."
Ms Ellis said the Elvis sign that had been a popular selfie spot during the exhibition will live on in different forms.
"The sequins are going to a local artist (who will) be using them for an art project, which is excellent," she said.
"The sign and some other specially-crafted things from the exhibition, we are working with Parkes Elvis Festival to essentially donate them to their site to decorate the festival space, which is really good.
"We've had so many inquiries for people wanting souvenirs from the exhibition. We are also planning to auction some (promotional) items that are left over.
"We want to see as much as possible being reused and not winding up in the skip."
Ms Marchese said it was logistically challenging to take so many different types of items overseas.
"It's a very unique situation because you're dealing with delicate documents, and then you have wardrobe and then when you've got a car," she said. "There's so many variants and so many things that can go wrong when you're transporting things like this.
"We have to make sure that we cross our Ts and dot our Is to make sure that everything is handled properly.
"The most challenging thing is probably the car. It is so big and it doesn't run, so it gets pushed. So that's probably one of the most challenging things to actually move around."
The exhibition had more than 219,000 visitors breaking the previous record held by Grace Kelly by about 60,000.
"We sort of anticipated it would be a big one but it's taken us all by surprise just how huge it's been," Ms Ellis said.
"I think in a post COVID world, we take nothing for granted. We just had to hope that there wasn't like a terrible (COVID) wave or another lockdown. There are so many factors that can influence people's ability to travel.
Plus you never really know until showtime like what the audience reaction to the exhibition will be. Did we get it right? Was it faithful to people's idea of Elvis? Did it live up to expectations?"
Ms Marchese said Graceland was beyond excited at the Australian response to the exhibition that was exclusive to Bendigo.
"It's been great for the state. It's been great for the city. It's been great for the gallery, and it's been great for Elvis," she said.
"Elvis is having an amazing summer. We're celebrating the 45th anniversary of his passing next month at Graceland during the Elvis week (and) we've had the Baz Luhrmann film which has been critically acclaimed.
"The Bendigo Art Gallery has been nothing but amazing to work with. They're so professional, they have such a knowledge and such a care for the items and it's been great to find a team of people who dove into the topic the way we do at Graceland.
"It's been one of the most amazing experiences I've been able to have in 33 years of doing this."
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