The sixty‐four year old Kodak Hula Show1 is one of the oldest staged tourist performances in the world. Created for the benefit of tourists wishing to take pictures of hula dancers, the event has always promoted photography as a naturalized, integral part of the tourist experience. The show and the tourists’ photography complement one another in establishing and reinforcing Eastman Kodak's, tourists’ and performers’ goals. Performers’ ideology, Kodak's promotional ploys, and tourist expectations shape the construction, memorialization, and idealization of Hawaiian culture as presented in the show. The performance itself is mirrored and extended in the photographic goals of tourists. The strong emphasis placed on tourists and photography at the show is a major element in the event's association with kitsch. An examination of the Kodak Hula Show and the tourist photography it promotes provides insights into reasons that performative events for tourists are so often linked with and well‐suited to the photographic aims of tourists.