14,000 Wal-Mart Employees, Shareholders Gather In NW Arkansas

The world’s largest retailer does things in a big way, and its annual shareholder week is certainly no exception.

Roughly 14,000 people are expected to fill Bud Walton Arena early Friday morning for Wal-Mart’s annual shareholder bash which will be a larger-than-life celebration of 51-years in the retail business.

Shareholders never know who will show up to join the celebration. In recent years, they have been treated to musical performances from the likes of Celine Dion, Lionel Richie, Mariah Carey, Josh Groban, Taylor Swift and the Zac Brown Band and hosted by Ben Stiller, Jamie Foxx and Justin Timberlake.

But shareholder week is much more than the star-studded pep rally/business meeting set for Friday morning (June 7). Roughly 5,000 Wal-Mart employees will again attend this year’s event as representatives gather from the 27 countries where Wal-Mart operates 69 banners. These international and domestic delegates are nominated by peers in their stores to make the expense-paid trip and they routinely stay in residence halls at the University of Arkansas.

Steve Voorhies, manager of media relations at the University of Arkansas, said international visitors began signing in yesterday afternoon (Sunday, June 2). He said Wal-Mart reserved 4,609 beds on campus and several meals in the dining hall that will bring in roughly $1 million to the combined university auxiliaries helping with this year’s event. Voorhies added it is nice for the university to get this international exposure each year and the auxiliaries providing services for the week are paid by Wal-Mart as follows:

• Dining $500,000
• Housing $400,000
• Security $134,275, with $83,635 going to the UA police
• Parking $70,000
• Facilities $5,200
• Telephone $350

He said the sports arena works out its own deal with Wal-Mart which includes charges for event set-up.

Dianna Gee, spokeswoman for Wal-Mart, said 30 busloads of employees from stores around the U.S. are also arriving today (June 3) and early tomorrow for the week’s festivities and meetings that begin early Wednesday morning. She said the visitors tour local stores, the Wal-mart Visitor’s Center, Walton’s Five and Dime in downtown Bentonville as well as several other areas of interest.

For Wal-Mart and local hospitality venues it’s all hands on deck this week with corporate employees ushering and chaperoning store employees to and from roughly a dozen events during the next five days.

Another group of store employees made their way to Northwest Arkansas this week as well, but they are not celebrating. Roughly 100 representatives from OUR Walmart, an affiliate of the United Food Commercial Workers International Union, picketed outside Wal-Mart’s home office on Monday morning and plan to demonstrate at several other events throughout the week.

OUR Walmart is a national organization of Walmart employees speaking out for a stronger company and economy.

Wal-Mart spokesman Dan Fogleman said the annual shareholder’s meeting is a time of celebration as the company invites thousands of its employees from around the world to take part in the festivities which also includes interaction with company leadership.

“The union and its OUR Walmart subsidiary are comprised of a very small number of people, most of whom aren’t even Wal-Mart associates and don’t represent the views of the vast majority of people who work at Wal-Mart,” Fogleman said.

Wal-Mart also invites its employees to two music concerts early in the week, Elton John will rock Bud Walton Arena on Tuesday night to a sell-out crowd of roughly 14,000. Country artist Luke Bryan is taking the stage on Wednesday night, and TicketMaster notes on its website that all tickets for this concert are also gone.

Just under 100 members of media from all over the world have registered to cover this year’s event and some 20,000 people are expected to tune into Friday’s meeting via webcast.