Walmart’s Celebrity-Studded Annual Party Is Silenced by Covid
The world’s largest retailer has had to cancel its big corporate shindig, depriving local businesses of the “huge shot in the arm” they typically enjoy from thousands of visitors.
Actor and musician Jamie Foxx dances onstage with Walmart associates during the annual shareholders meeting event in Fayetteville, on June 1, 2018.
Photographer: Rick T. Wilking/Getty ImagesEvery year in early June, thousands of people from around the globe descend upon Northwest Arkansas for a gathering like no other.
Take a corporate presentation, add a raucous rock concert, toss in a few celebrities and the world’s richest family, douse it all with the fervor of an old-fashioned religious revival, and you have the annual Walmart Inc. “associate and shareholder celebration.” The week-long affair attracts a varied crowd — from pinstriped Wall Street analysts to Dickies-clad forklift operators — who pour money into the hotels, bars and restaurants in and around the retailer’s hometown of Bentonville, Arkansas.