Type of Project
Corporate Event. Corporate event, arena-scale: three components in one week for Walmart, an internal associates meeting, an evening headliner concert, and a public-facing event open to shareholders and internal associates, with headliner performances woven into both meetings.
Name of Project
Walmart Associates Week 2026
Corporate event, arena-scale: three components in one week for Walmart, an internal associates meeting, an evening headliner concert, and a public-facing event open to shareholders and internal associates, with headliner performances woven into both meetings.
- Client: LEO Events.
- Venue: Bud Walton Arena, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR.
Design Criteria
The brief was to light a full week of Walmart's business meetings and concerts in one arena, with one stage serving very different audiences. The internal associates meeting spoke to Walmart's own people. The external meeting spoke to investors interested in the company's direction, and because the internal audience attended that one too, it also had to work as a rocking celebration for the associates in the room. Headline acts (Benson Boone, Shaboozey and P!nk, plus a separate Kacey Musgraves set inside the associates meeting) carried much of that energy. The rig had to switch identity between a corporate general session and distinct concert looks within the same event, with Walmart's content as the priority throughout. The headliners were a major part of the show, but the design built a visual landscape, a giant canvas of pixels and world-class visuals, that put Walmart's message at the center and made sure it looked perfect on camera.
Project Description
Walmart Associates Week 2026 ran June 1-5 at Bud Walton Arena in Fayetteville, Arkansas, the company's annual associate gathering and public-facing business meeting. UVLD (Gregory Cohen and Matt Webb, co-designers) lit the full week: the U.S. Associates Meeting with a Kacey Musgraves performance inside it, an evening headliner concert, and the public-facing meeting and Associates Celebration, a full concert morning with Benson Boone, Shaboozey and P!nk hosted by Jason Sudeikis. That last show ran live from a 7:52 AM cold open and was done before noon.
Challenges and Solutions
Walmart Associates Week is an annual show, and we have been lighting it for years. The challenge is to keep it visually fresh for an audience that has seen the show before. The primary way we do that is through the scenic design, which changes from year to year and gives us a new architectural canvas to work with. The artists themselves are another major part of that evolution. Their presence and creative direction fundamentally influence how we use the space.
The headliners are a huge component of the show, and each arrives with their own lighting designer or creative team and a very specific vision for their performance. Rather than trying to make those artists conform to the visual language of the corporate show, we work with them to find a way to integrate their aesthetic into the larger environment. We take their tracks, timecode and creative direction in advance, build their looks into our show file, and provide a pre-visualization environment on site where their teams can see the work in the actual space and respond to it. That collaboration continues through the final programming and on-site rehearsals.
The result is a lighting system that can move from Walmart’s corporate content into completely different artistic worlds while still feeling like one show. The artists get the visual language they are asking for, while Walmart’s content remains at the center of the overall design.
The other major challenge is time. There is very little programming time on site, so the creative work has to happen well in advance. We build as much as possible remotely, review video with each artist’s lighting team, incorporate their notes, and arrive with the majority of the programming already complete.
Because the show functions more like an award show than a conventional concert, there is also no opportunity to simply hand over the console to each artist. Every act’s songs, timecode and lighting cues have to live within our master show file. That requirement drives the entire workflow, from the initial advance through the final cue in the arena, and allows multiple headline artists with very different creative directions to coexist within a single, continuously running show.
Equipment
The rig was designed with layers of visual articulation deep enough to give the headliners room to go big and expressive while keeping the corporate show polished and commanding.
The rig included 37 Ayrton Domino LT fixtures, 54 Robe iForte LTX, 60 Acme Lyra XA 1000 BSWF IPs, 43 Martin MAC Aura XIP, 100 Martin MAC Ones, 44 GLP JDC1 strobes, 92 Chauvet Color Strike M, 44 Chauvet COLORado PXL Curve 12s and 126 Acme Pixel Line IP strobes, all run from two grandMA3 full-size consoles. That gave us beams, washes, strobes and pixel effects that could be recombined to reshape the room from one segment to the next.
We also used the Follow-Me remote followspot system to keep executives and headliners cleanly lit, with a high-CRI source that held the same calibrated color treatment throughout.
A major consideration was that the rig had to support both the corporate show and multiple headline concerts. We therefore approached the system as a large pixel-based canvas as much as a conventional concert rig. The density of LED and pixel fixtures gave us the ability to create large-scale visual textures and architectural effects for Walmart's content, while the moving lights provided the flexibility and punch needed to transition into individual artist looks.
Keeping everything on the same control system was particularly important because each artist's programming, timecode and cues had to be incorporated into a single show file rather than doing a mid-show session swap.
The design was deliberately overbuilt for flexibility, allowing us to treat the arena as one large lighting instrument rather than a corporate rig with concert equipment added to it.
Photos by Gregory Cohen
Team Members
Lighting design by UVLD
Lighting designers: Gregory Cohen and Matt Webb. Kevin Lawson, lighting director, Wednesday night concert. Harrison Freni, ring-out programmer.
Guest artist lighting designers: Luke Elrod (Benson Boone), Steve "Six" Schwind (P!nk), Danielle Edwards (Kacey Musgraves).
Pete Campbell, master electrician. Assistant electricians: Bill Moore, John Campbell and David George. Steve Wojda, lighting project manager, Upstaging. Abigail Johnson (follow-me), Aiden Murphy, William Attisano and Lauren Spiegel, lighting techs, Upstaging.
Production, LEO Events: David Kenyon, executive producer. Amelia Seaton, senior producer. Sara Orzech, producer, U.S. Associates. Steve Barrett, technical director. Sam Moergen, headliner technical director. Steve Fissel, labor and operations. Alison Ray, entertainment. Scott "Stryker" Christensen, stage management, bands.
Show Director: Nichola Taylor. Camera Director: Nic Duggar. Screens Producer: Rachel Heitzer. CEO keynote presentation produced by Stacey Ladd.
Rigging: Morgan Prine and Dave Gittens, Atlanta Rigging.
Media and content: Thrasos Media (Cameron Yeary), Studio SEA, Emile Wolsky (Intertain Productions).
Live audio design: Kelly Epperson, Easy Live Audio.
Vendors: Lighting rental: Upstaging, Inc. Scenery: Communilux. Video: CT. Broadcast truck: TNDV. Power and generators: Aggreko.
Manufacturers: Ayrton, Robe, Acme, Martin, GLP, Chauvet, Tyler Truss, MA Lighting.