On the Scottsdale Waterfront, a trunk unfolds into a 16-foot blackjack table. Around it, four performers play period snake-oil salesmen and broadcast advertisers, surrounded by vintage posters, a newspaper, a radio and a television. They try to sell you a romanticized vision of the American West. You pay with stories, favors or objects instead of money, and cameras send your wager back to the TV.
The piece is called "The Way The West Was Sold." It comes from Jolly Productions, a Phoenix character-artist collective, and it runs all 10 nights of Canal Convergence 2026, Friday, Nov. 6 through Sunday, Nov. 15. This year's theme is Western Nature. It follows SHOWTIME in 2025 and Reflections in 2024. Old Town already has Western Spirit: Scottsdale's Museum of the West and shops that sell western hats and apparel. On the canal, the Western image becomes the material the artists work with. The lineup takes the familiar Western props apart, including the horse, the balloon ride, the film reel and the sales pitch, and then gives the controls to whoever walks up.
The Props Come With Levers
Look at how many of the 11 works on the official artwork list are Western icons you operate yourself.
| Artwork | Artist, home base | The Western image | What you do |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prairie Fire | True North Absurdities, Calgary | A 9-foot rearing horse in faceted aluminum | Press the lit button and a controlled flame bursts 7 to 10 feet from its mouth |
| Dream Rider | William Nemitoff with Curious Form, New Orleans | A wild horse in weathering steel and iridescent polycarbonate | Climb inside, go up the neck, slide down the glowing mane |
| Sky Wrangler | William Nemitoff with Curious Form, New Orleans | A 25-foot hot-air balloon | Spin the basket and pull a burner-style lever to swirl projected color and historic Western film footage |
| PERIGEE | Chalk River Labs, Melbourne | A 26-foot-wide aluminum form projection-mapped with Western imagery | Ride one of two swings |
| The Way The West Was Sold | Jolly Productions, Phoenix | The frontier sales pitch | Barter at the blackjack table |
Two of the five are horses, and you set off both of them. The balloon plays old Western film only while someone spins the basket. Scottsdale Arts' August 26 lineup announcement calls the Chalk River Labs piece "APOGEE," but its artwork page and the official list use PERIGEE. Look for that name on site.
This year, each interaction plays out a piece of the Western myth. You get pitched at the blackjack table and then you go work the props it was pitching.
Underneath the Postcard, the Desert Talks Back
The other half of the lineup moves from the movie-set West to the West that grows, crawls and flashes over the Arizona Canal. The same rule applies: nothing happens until a visitor steps in.
"Desert Choir," by Montreal's Ottomata, puts microphone stations along the canal. Your voice sends trails of light across three suspended screens shaped like saguaro blossoms. The screens reveal desert animals and answer you with Southwestern animal calls. Out on the water, Walter Productions' "Western Fire Garden" floats sculptural Sonoran plants and desert-animal silhouettes outlined in LED and set to sound. Amigo & Amigo's "KaKtos" is a forest of 10 giant inflatable cacti, lit from inside and covered in bold Memphis-style patterns.
The piece with the most weight is "grandmother turtle," shaped like an endangered native desert tortoise. Utah's In Theory Art Studios built it with Santa Clara Pueblo artist Nora Naranjo-Morse and Laura Tohe, the former Navajo Nation Poet Laureate who was recently named Arizona Poet Laureate. Contemporary petroglyphs and Tohe's poetry are laser-cut into the steel shell and lit from inside. If you saw "polychroma," the rainbow dichroic sculpture at last year's event, you already know this studio. It returns with two works. The second is "the weight of light," a 14-foot lightning bolt in eight shards. Press the shard buttons and a vertical strike of white light and a boom of thunder tear through it.
On the Marshall Way Bridge, "Another Slice of Reality: An Evolving Nature," by Tempe's Shaoyu Su with LedPulse, responds to sound, movement and the people nearby. Single interactions build into a shared display as a crowd gathers.
The Makers Get the Stage This Year
If the sculptures take apart the Western image, the programming shows who makes it. Scottsdale Arts' September 30 programming announcement says the workshops at the Nationwide Innovation Zone will be led by Indigenous and Latinx artists and organizations whose work draws on the region's cultural and historical practices.
- Nov. 9: painting with natural pigments, with artists from the Center for Imagination in the Borderlands
- Nov. 10: beading with Maxica Colectivo
- Nov. 15: bandana printing with Jeremy Arviso
The Dress-Up Space is back under the name "Working West." Phoenix-based Indigenous designer Jeremy Arviso curates it with Diné hatter Geri James and Diné weaver Gloria Fain. It focuses on Arizona's working landscape, reclaimed materials and contemporary Indigenous design. In the announcement, Arviso describes it this way:
"'Working West' is an invitation to customize, create and wear your story."
Weekday programming at the Herberger Stage on Soleri Plaza is new this year. On Thursday, Nov. 12, Arizona State University FIDM students present "WEARABLE WILDS: Fashion, Technology & Ecologies of the West," which treats the West as a laboratory where fashion, technology and ecology meet. Selected "Working West" garments also go on stage that night in Arviso's own show. The Scottsdale Arts Roundabout at Marshall Way hosts western-related activities from community partners, including Western Spirit: Scottsdale's Museum of the West, CALA Alliance, Puente, RUMBO, Art Heals Arizona and S'edav Va'aki Museum. The roundabout and Soleri Plaza also hosted the 2025 event, so those spots will be familiar.
Building Your Evenings Around the Fire
Nightly hours change with the day of the week.
| Nights | Hours |
|---|---|
| Fri.–Sat., Nov. 6–7 | 6–10 p.m. |
| Sun.–Thu., Nov. 8–12 | 6–9 p.m. |
| Fri.–Sat., Nov. 13–14 | 6–10 p.m. |
| Sun., Nov. 15, closing night | 6–9 p.m. |
Walter Productions' fire shows run nightly at 6:30, 7:30 and 8:30 p.m., with flames reaching up to 20 feet. On the shorter Sunday-through-Thursday nights, the last show starts half an hour before closing. For a resident who can walk over more than once, the calendar suggests a plan:
- Go on a weeknight for the props. Sunday through Thursday has the shorter 6–9 p.m. window, and Nov. 12 adds the stage fashion shows.
- Book the $6 art tour once. It's a one-hour walk led by Scottsdale Arts staff with audio headsets, and you have to register in advance. All ticketed tours and select workshops are on sale now.
- Save a weekend for the music. Arizona-based and regional acts play the Herberger Stage on weekends, with headliners QVLN, a Latin pop act, and indie rock band Nodaway. The Canal Convergence Beer and Wine Garden next to the stage has food trucks and dessert vendors every night.
- Catch closing night for dance. Scottsdale Community College Dance gives two site-specific performances at 7 and 8 p.m. on Nov. 15. On Nov. 14, NicoleOlson|MovementChaos performs at the Chalk River Labs swing sculpture.
The main event, the performances and the drop-in workshops are free. Nightly tours, ticketed workshops and some special events cost money. The footprint is the same one you know, in and over the Arizona Canal and along the paths and bridges between Scottsdale Road and Goldwater Boulevard. The Old Town Scottsdale district runs a Canal Convergence offers page listing participating shops, galleries and restaurants. Check each merchant's current terms before you go.
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