Providing Audio for Walton Arena and 100,000+ Simulcast Web Viewers
The Walmart Shareholders Meeting, held annually since 1994 at Bud Walton Arena in Fayetteville, AR, combines elements of traditional corporate meetings with a glitzy awards show and rock concert, all for the biggest company in the world, in a venue designed primarily for basketball games.
Everything business-related is included—from electing new officers to reviewing earnings and honoring associates who go above and beyond for customers. The rest of the time, the confab is an entertainment extravaganza for the associates and shareholders, with A-list celebrities and entertainment.
To get an idea of what it’s like to produce this event — the 2017 event took place in early June — think Grammys meets General Sessions. Think superstars of pop and rock doing what they do best while top executives rock the audience with critical messages and yearly results. Think an international audience of nearly 19,000 representing 28 countries on-site and another 100,000 viewing the simultaneous webcast. Think big. REALLY big. Now you have an inkling of what this event is like.
The Corporate Side
John Williams is the sound designer for the event. He has been mixing FOH on the corporate side of the Walmart Shareholders Meeting for more than 10 years, handling all speech and playback. Over that time, he has refined the hang. Presently the L-Acoustics K2 P.A. system consists of six hangs with stereo L-R mains along with outfill arrays wrapping around the sides of the stage.
Hanging down the sides of the upper bowl of the arena are several L-Acoustics Kara elements compensating for the longer throws and higher throws to those seats. Two more K2 clusters cover the far end of the arena. Williams credits Patrice Lavoie, co-sound designer and system lead from Solotech, with improving on his existing design during their involvement with the project.
“These are a critical addition in terms of getting drive out of the PA to help out with speech coverage,” says Williams. “The goal is to provide coverage to every seat in the arena, because every seat in the house is important. We want audio to impact the last 20 rows as clearly as the front 20.”
The system has to serve two masters — the corporate spoken word and concert level music for the multiple bands that perform at the mega-event.
“It’s somewhat easier to come in with a huge line array system and shotgun an arena like this to make it very loud for bands,” notes Williams. “With this hang and its inherent flexibility, we have the drive from the mains and still have a bit of a distributed system. It is certainly an old-school way to do it, but you can’t argue with the results. This way, at the end of the day, when I need a little more lav coverage, it’s a turn of a knob away. Mind you, we have a huge hang over the stage, but you can tune just so far. There is a point at which driving 100+ feet away, it needs to be more localized.”
Williams points out that another great advantage of the L-Acoustics box is the ability to narrow dispersion by adjusting the internal louvers, keeping comb filtering and interference between arrays to a minimum. “I do love working with David [Kenyon, Walmart Shareholders Meeting project manager with Leo Events] because he is very good about affording us the tools to get the job done properly. Sometimes it is a hard sell,” smiles Williams,” but he always comes through!”
In addition, Williams also oversees the overall intercom system for the event, “which is as challenging as any other part of the project,” he says. “Throughout my 30 years in this business, I have found it consistently to be true that, having a good reliable com system is almost as important as what comes out of the speakers in terms of effectively getting the project staged and complete.”
The Riedel Communications system supplied by Solotech consists of 50 wired positions and more than 40 wireless stations, in addition to numerous feeds to the broadcast truck. The broadcast truck handles all things in terms of record and the web feed, which is a significant portion of the event, reaching an audience of more than 100,000 via internet. “Charles Deziel and the crew from Solotech did an outstanding job of setting the system up. It worked flawlessly,” says Williams.
Williams is a big fan of Yamaha consoles and uses a CL5 on the Walmart show, which utilizes a Yamaha RMio64-D remote rack to split the signal between stage and broadcast truck. Inside the truck, the engineer runs a Soundcraft Vi6 mixing console.
Sound vendor Solotech fields the majority of the audio crew, who work alongside Leo’s handpicked audio team. “The Solotech crew did a stand out job of configuring this system,” says Williams.
While Walton Arena is acknowledged by the entire production staff as one of the most difficult buildings in North America to put a show into, for Williams the biggest challenge was managing the wireless frequencies. A typical corporate event with 100 frequencies is considered large. The Walmart Shareholders Meeting production had well over 200, including BTR units, in-ear monitors and all the wireless microphones needed by the multiple bands playing at the event.
Jason Attwell and Brooks Schroeder, partners in Frequency Coordination Group, were hired by Leo to manage more than 200 frequencies used during the show. Another key player on the audio team is Dan Schehr, the corporate side A2, who “is a very active and instrumental part of the team,” points out Williams. “He really is the audio team’s interface with the client as he is wiring all execs with mics. He also becomes the face of our team to the producers, stage managers and visiting bands.”
The Entertainment Side
Michael “Milk” Arnold is the A1 for Leo Events, mixing the entertainment side of the event. Arnold’s responsibilities include advancing all the acts and appropriately managing band stage plots, their wireless requests for microphones, in ear monitors and instruments
Multiple audio consoles were required to drive different aspects of the event as the focus turned from corporate meeting into an awards show to ensure that the company’s top brass, awards honorees, headliners and house band could all be heard clearly.
“At FOH I had a DiGiCo SD7 with Wave server and cranked up [an Avid Venue] Profile with an extra processing engine for incoming bands,” says Arnold. “l also had my own Profile for mixing the house band and any opening elements, such as the opening ceremony and the occasional act that sang with the house band.”
At Monitor world, there was a DiGiCo SD10 and an Avid Profile for visiting acts. The house band, which played on a separate stage left of the main stage, was run on another Avid Profile. Basically, two pairs of consoles (four total) handled the main stage and visiting acts, and a third pair of consoles handled the house band and opening ceremony elements.
“On the concert nights, we had to carve out a footprint for acts to bring in their own consoles,” says Arnold, of the headliners including Gwen Stefani, Rascal Flatts, Ne-Yo and Mary J. Blige. He credits Leo’s James Atwell as “one of the six or eight wireless geniuses in the country that can handle 200-300 frequencies in a room — wrangling wireless is his sole gig.”
Although it holds a lot of people, Bud Walton Arena poses inherent challenges to production crews, Arnold notes. “It’s a basketball floor, and there is no production staging area to work with,” he says. “A lot of stuff gets pulled into catwalks or has to be sent back out of the building to the trucks,” he adds.
A notable piece of automated staging, which came to be known as the “clamshell,” was designed to solve a very simple problem — to find a way to reveal, show and hide the headline acts that played between speech presentations and the next act. Two halves of a 16-foot tall stage left and right wall opened or closed for performances.
While it serves as a visually appealing part of the overall design and look of the show, the clamshell posed some production challenges, including limited room for staging and striking bands within an already-difficult production environment. Backstage, there was no room to set up the next band while the current one played. A 50-foot runway was built off the upstage lip towards the lone tunnel that led to the trucks in the parking lot. While that helped with staging and travel of rolling risers for set changes, often a speaker was on stage while the gear was being changed.
“You have to realize, too, these are major A-list acts with full band changeovers which have to be accomplished quietly and efficiently so we don’t interrupt the CEO speaking or their presentation taking place on other side of the clamshell,” adds Arnold.
On top of all those challenges, Walmart keeps its featured headliners a carefully guarded secret, and while the production team is privy to that info soon after each act is confirmed, it’s still not like the Grammy’s where the performing artists arrive early for rehearsals. “There are just so many variables,” Arnold says, noting that he did not have full production details for all the acts that performed ahead of the event, and with many arriving mid-tour or just after an album release, the artists don’t arrive on site in the order they are set to play.
As a result, the audio and production teams need to pay close attention to logistics management. Arnold and the audio staff for Leo work to provide everything each band would need from their rider. Avatar Studios and owner Kenny Cresswell provides any backline needed. The Walmart Shareholders Meeting needs to match major awards show production values with none of the rehearsal time those big events normally enjoy. Even so, Leo Events’ team of handpicked professionals and vendors keep managing to meet and exceed the Walmart Creative Team’s expectations, year after year.
A Stream of Transitions
Segues are constant once the event starts, keeping the crews on their toes. There are no commercial breaks or extended video playbacks. “We do have an average of 30 minutes for set changes,” says Arnold, “but these are 60 input flips to 100 input flips, or vice-versa, and you don’t get a chance to check drums while spoken word is taking place downstage of the closed clamshell.
“But, that’s what they hire us to do, make sure that all happens,” Arnold smiles. ”The Leo team is impressive. Production managers Steve Barrett and Jim Dorroh are excellent to work with. Steve has the 40,000-foot view, and Jim is down in the trenches solving the problems for the ten days we’re on site. Those two make a great team.”
Arnold continues with his kudos. “Damien Shannon, my stage patch lead, and Kevin Weilder, my overall patch master, are from Leo and they do an amazing job. The independents that David Kenyon brings in on the Leo side all have a commitment to the event, not just the company they work for.”
Kenyon, Leo Events project manager, acknowledges that projects of this scope, in a building this difficult, with the timeline restrictions inherent to live entertainment, can be a recipe for a highly stressful environment. “That’s why we pride ourselves on hand-picking and fine-tuning the vendors and people we work with on all our events, not just Walmart. John has been working this project with me since 2008 and probably, in my opinion, the single best corporate audio engineer I have ever worked with. He’s easy to work with, rolls with the punches and has the skills of an old road guy coupled with the finesse and grace of a corporate guy. As we all know, those two worlds don’t always mesh together well.”
“This is only the second year I have worked with Milk,” adds Kenyon. “He has to meet the needs of the Walmart corporate structure of the event, but he’s gotta keep all these big name acts really happy. He does a great job at balancing that and figuring out how to get multiple acts on and off stage in a short time and close quarters. I look forward to working with him again, next year.”
Production Credits
Crew
Leo Events Staff:
- Project Manager: David Kenyon
- Executive Producer: Pete Cappa
- Technical Directors: Steve Barrett and Jim Dorroh
- Creative Director/Production Designer: Chris Simmons
Audio Crew:
- A1 Corporate/Leo Events: John Williams
- A1 Entertainment/Leo Events: Michael “Milk” Arnold
- A2 Corporate/Leo Events: Dan Schehr
- Pro Tools/Leo Events: Eric Heil
- RF Coordination/Leo Events: Jason Atwell
- Stage Patch/Tech 1/Leo Events: Kevin Weilder
- Stage Patch/Tech 2/Leo Events: Damien Shannon
- Audio PM/Solotech: Dan Williams
- PM Assist/Solotech: Jayceen Judd
- Systems Tech/Solotech: Etienne Lapre
- Monitor Mix/Solotech: Renato Petruzziello
- Stage Techs/Solotech: Louis- Philippe Maziade and Nicholas Stover
- Monitor Tech/Solotech: Alexandre Ginchereau
- Comms/Solotech: Charles Dezeil and Mathieu Levasque
- RF/Solotech: Marius Theriault
Gear
FOH
- Consoles: 1 Yamaha CL5 with 3 Rio 1608D, 2 Rio 3224D, 1 RMIO 64 (Corporate Console); 1 Avid Venue Profile w/ stage rack (48 inputs) & 4 DSP cards in FOH rack and Venue pack 3.1 (House Band); 1 Avid Profile w/ 2 stage racks (96 inputs) & 4 DSP cards in FOH rack and Venue pack 3.1 (Entertainment), 1 DiGiCo SD7 with 2 stage racks (112 inputs, Entertainment)
- Speakers: 28 L-Acoustics K2 (main arrays), 24 K2 (mid arrays), 36 Kara (side arrays), 12 K2 (delays), 24 DV (under balcony arrays), 4 ARC Wide (under balcony/upstage), 10 8XT (front fills), 4 x15HIQ, 4 12XT, 12 SB28 (ground subs)
- Amps: 20 RLA8
- Processing: 3 Meyer Sound Galileo AES
MON
- Consoles: 1 Avid Venue Profile w/ 2 stage racks (96 inputs) & 4 DSP cards in FOH rack and Venue pack 3.1 (Entertainment), 1 DiGiCo SD7 w/ 2 stage racks (112 inputs) (Entertainment), 1 DiGiCo SD10 with 1 stage rack (56 inputs) (House Band)
- Speakers: 12 L-Acoustic X15HIQ, 4 Mix LA8 (12 mixes), 3 L-Acoustics ARCS (side fills), 4 Yorkville NX 720 (drum subs), 2 Meyer Sound MSL4 (side fills), 2 Meyer Sound 700HP (drum fills)
- Wireless/IEMs (Corporate): 12 Shure UR4D wireless receiver combos, 12 Shure Axient wireless receiver combos, 2 ch PSM 1000 w/ 2 beltpacks, 1 Yamaha QL 1, 1 complete antenna distribution.
- Wireless/IEMs (Entertainment): 12 Shure UR4D wireless receiver combos, 3 Sennheiser EM3732 wireless receiver combos, 16 ch PSM 1000 w/ 40 beltpacks, 7 ch SR-2050 w/ 47 beltpacks, 1 complete antenna distribution
- Comms: 2 Riedel Matrix Artist 128, 2 Yamaha Rio 1608D, 4 BTR Station wireless comms, 1 lot of beltpack and key panel to accommodate, 1 lot of headsets to accommodate, 1 complete antenna distribution
