• by Melynda Fuller , March 27, 2020

Group Nine’s PopSugar is postponing its Play/Ground festival set to take place in New York in June. The third annual festival is now slated to take place at a yet-to-be announced date in the fall, due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

Play/Ground is PopSugar’s largest event, with more than 15,000 women expected to attend in 2020. Last year’s festival featured headliners like Chrissy Teigen, Issa Rae, Mandy Moore and Camila Mendes. The event also features fitness classes, panels, entrepreneurial and life coaching seminars and shopping.

The 2019 event recorded attendance increase by 50% from Play/Ground’s first year, with 70% of the audience millennials and a 60% increase in brand sponsors.

This year’s Play/Ground will expand programming with immersive villages and booths that connect attendees with brand partners across categories like sex and relationships, fertility, menstrual health, sports, gaming and politics, among others.

Headliners and sponsors of this year’s event will be announced later this summer, according to a statement from PopSugar founder-president Lisa Sugar.

The announcement comes as many other publishers have also canceled events.

Bizzabo, an event planning platform, estimates that publishers lose on average $3 million per canceled event.