Skip to main content

SXSW conference canceled as coronavirus fears mount

 

South by Southwest, the annual, week-long tech, culture, and music festival based in Austin, Texas, has been canceled due to the spread of the coronavirus.

Recommended Videos

In a tweet Friday, SXSW officials said “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.”

https://twitter.com/sxsw/status/1236048680337182724?s=20

Austin health officials were ultimately the ones to make the call, according to the tweet.

The announcement does not come as a surprise for many, but more of a shock that it took so long.

https://twitter.com/evanasmith/status/1236048314849779713?s=20

For weeks, companies like Facebook, Twitter, Apple, WarnerMedia, Netflix, and Intel have announced plans to pull out of the event. And social media users urged SXSW officials to cancel the conference in the name of public health.

Replies from users on Twitter were hidden by the @sxsw account. Nearly 55,000 people signed a Change.org petition entitled “Petition to have SXSW canceled amid Coronavirus Outbreak.” Tweets hidden by SXSW’s Twitter page included calls to “announce the cancellation” and questions, like from user @EbertReginald, “All of these companies have canceled to protect their employees. Why are you not doing the same?”

https://twitter.com/thomas_144/status/1235980189554880512?s=20

Image used with permission by copyright holder

SXSW draws hundreds of thousands of people every year, and 17% of attendees come from the West Coast, according to the conference’s 2019 data, which is currently experiencing the country’s worst outbreak of the coronavirus. 

In Seattle and Silicon Valley, California, local schools have shut down and tech workers have been told to stay at home for up to two weeks. The state of Washington has since called a state of emergency after the first coronavirus death in the U.S. was announced last month. 

SXSW generates millions of dollars for the city of Austin and its local businesses. Last year, more than 55,000 hotel rooms were booked for the conference, bringing in $1.7 million in occupancy tax alone. And no doubt dollars were spent by attendees on food, transportation, and retail — Austin saw $356 million in total revenue from just one week of festivities.

So, it is understandable why the organizers behind SXSW were at first hesitant to cancel the event. 

Please enable Javascript to view this content

Meira Gebel
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Meira Gebel is a freelance reporter based in Portland. She writes about tech, social media, and internet culture for Digital…
Alan Cumming says that he’s ‘excited and amazed’ to be able to return to Nightcrawler
Alan Cumming as Nightcrawler in X2

There were plenty of expected names in the extended cast reveal for Avengers: Doomsday, along with a few notable absences. Perhaps the most surprising addition to the cast, though, was the return of many of the original Fox X-Men from the early 2000s trilogy. Among the most notable actors returning are Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellan, James Marsden, Rebecca Romjin, and Alan Cumming, who played Nightcrawler in X2: X-Men United.

In a recent interview with Jenna Bush-Hager and Olivia Munn, Cumming said that he was excited to be able to step back into the character after more than 20 years.

Read more
Google just gave vision to AI, but it’s still not available for everyone
Gemini Live App on the Galaxy S25 Ultra broadcast to a TV showing the Gemini app with the camera feature open

Google has just officially announced the roll out of a powerful Gemini AI feature that means the intelligence can now see.

This started in March as Google began to show off Gemini Live, but it's now become more widely available.

Read more
This modular Pebble and Apple Watch underdog just smashed funding goals
UNA Watch

Both the Pebble Watch and Apple Watch are due some fierce competition as a new modular brand, UNA, is gaining some serous backing and excitement.

The UNA Watch is the creation of a Scottish company that wants to give everyone modular control of smartwatch upgrades and repairs.

Read more