South by Southwest, the big tech, music and film
gathering held annually in Austin, Texas, has become the latest industry event to be canceled due to the coronavirus.
The organizers of the for-profit event, which was to run for 10 days
starting March 13, tweeted late Friday afternoon that the city of Austin had made the cancellation decision.
“We are devastated to share this news with you… ‘The show must
go on’ is in our DNA, and this is the first time in 34 years that the March event will not take place,” they wrote. “We are working through the ramifications of this unprecedented
situation.”
As late as Wednesday, the city indicated that there was no evidence that closing SXSW or other events would make the community safer, but changed its stance due to the
“rapidly evolving” Covid-19 situation, the organizers stated.
Austin Mayor Steve Adler said that an emergency order he was putting in place on Friday “effectively”
cancelled the event.
Many big companies had already pulled out or canceled on-the ground presences or project debuts planned for the show, including Netflix, Warner Media, Apple, IBM, Facebook
and Amazon.
Speakers including Twitter’s Jack Dorsey had also already cancelled, and a Change.org petition calling for cancellng the event had already gathered more than 55,000
signatures, noted The Verge.
The cancellation is a blow to many companies’ marketing plans, but an even bigger blow for Austin, which last year attracted more than 200,000 people,
and made $355.9 million for the city.
However, the cancellation message on the event’s site said the organizers are “exploring
options to reschedule the event and are working to provide a virtual SXSW online experience as soon as possible for 2020 participants, starting with SXSW EDU.”
As of this morning,
a refund policy had been posted.