The popular Austin music, film and technology festival SXSW has been canceled due to concerns about COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, according to several reports.
Several reports speak to the announcement by Austin Mayor Steve Adler. Texas Tribune political reporter Alexandra Samuels tweeted the news Friday afternoon.
It's the first time in the annual fest's 33-year history that it's been called off, according to The Verge. The annual festival was scheduled March 13- March 22. In a news conference Friday afternoon, Adler announced, with several high-profile speakers and companies including Netflix pulling out, he decided the festival should be nixed for 2020.
“I’ve issued an order that effectively cancels South by Southwest,” Adler told the publication.
The festival has become the premier gathering of diverse, emerging tech entrepreneurs, musicians, artists and actors during the last decade. In 2019, the series of events that took place over several days in Austin brought in more than $355.9 million and attracted 280,000 attendees, according to SXSW.
“Each March, SXSW’s unparalleled mix of industry conferences, festivals and exhibitions attracts the world’s creative thought leaders to Austin. The gathering transforms the city into a global mecca for creative professionals and further reinforces Austin’s well-deserved reputation as a community where innovation and commerce are nurtured, networked and celebrated,” reads a statement from the conference’s executive statement.
In addition to Netflix, the festival had seen Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Amazon and Apple withdraw their plans to attend next week, according to reports. Tech companies including Facebook, Tik Tok and LinkedIn had also pulled the plug on their festival plans.
As reports about the onset of coronavirus in 18 states across the country, leading to 11 deaths, were announced, fans of the festival began expressing concern. A petition to cancel the event in response to the outbreak started gathering signatures. By Friday, more than 55,000 had signed the petition.
The Change.org petition organizer Shayla Lee wrote:
“I’m concerned about the hundreds of thousands of people who will be traveling to austin texas in march for the SXSW festival. I believe that having an event like this is irresponsible amid an outbreak.”
About 5:15 p.m., Lee wrote “We did it” on the Change.org site.
Earlier this week, SXSW organizers attempted to calm the chatter about the cancellation, telling USA Today in a statement that “personal hygiene is of critical importance,” so the festival would emphasize those hygiene efforts and monitor “recommendations of public health agencies” before canceling, according to The Verge.
By Tuesday, SXSW had also added new speakers including actor Kumail Nanjiani and journalist Tamron Hall.
The integral tech festival is one of many that has been called off during the last few weeks. The Mobile World Congress, Facebook’s F8 developer conference and Google’s Cloud Next conference were also canceled out of precaution.
SXSW released a statement about the cancellation Friday afternoon.
“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,” reads the statement. “We are now working through the ramification of this unprecedented situation.”
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