Dayz Out in Porthcawl by Ron McCormick

During the 1970s and 1980s, many British seaside resorts fell into decline with the arrival of cheap package holidays that flew their customers to exotic foreign and warmer climes. Porthcawl, however, has remained popular as a retirement destination, and for economic family holidays for people from the mining valleys and industrial towns of South Wales. The Trecco Bay Caravan Park, now grown to be the largest caravan park resort in the UK, and the many traditional guest houses continue to draw thousands of holidaymakers for the annual “Miners Fortnight” when the mines and heavy industry traditionally closed for two weeks in August for maintenance.

Twenty years ago, the resort received an unexpected boost to its fortunes when its Grand Pavilion was threatened with closure. To stem the tide of decline, the Elvis Festival, featuring a competition for Elvis Tribute Acts, was born, and what began in 2004 now embraces dozens of pubs and other venues and attracts tribute acts from all across the world.

Over the festival weekend, all of Porthcawl goes 'Elvis Presley' mad, revellers dress up in all varieties of costume, mixing freely with vacationing holidaymakers and long-term residents of the town. The festival has become a major feature in the town’s annual calendar, attracting over 40,000 visitors for the three-day jamboree to celebrate the King of Rock & Roll. Now in its 21st year, the Elvis weekend has earned its title “The Largest Festival of its Kind in the World”.

Ron McCormick has been photographing the British seaside off and on for fifty years and first exhibited some of that work in 1973 in a two-man show (with Josef Koudelka) about the Essex seaside resort of Southend-on-Sea. This current work returns to the theme with a selection of pictures made in Porthcawl over the last twelve years and takes in “girls' nights out”, “the cult of Elvis” and “a family day at the seaside” overlaid with a whiff of hedonistic celebration that mirrors the extravagant indulgence of Blackpool, Brighton and Bognor.

Widely known for his photographs of Whitechapel and other communities ranging from Oldham to Southend on Sea and, most recently, Newport in South Wales. He is widely published, exhibited, and is represented in several international directories of photography, including 'CONTEMPORARY PHOTOGRAPHERS' Pub. St James’ Press, New York, 1995. 'POST-WAR TO POST-MODERN: A Dictionary of Artists in Wales', Gomer Press, Wales, 2015. 'NO SUCH THING AS SOCIETY: Photography in Britain 1967-1987' Hayward Publishing, London, 2007. 'PHOTOGRAPHY OF PROTEST AND COMMUNITY: The Radical Collectives of the 1970s' Lund Humphries, London 2020, and 'ANOTHER COUNTRY: British Documentary Photographysince 1945' Thames & Hudson, London 2022

Dayz Out in Porthcawl
Ron McCormick
Published by Fistful of Books in 2025
Foreword by Stephen Clarke
Design by Simon Robinson
68 pages
230 x 210mm
Colour digital printing

First Edition limited to 150 copies