With just a week left before scheduled kickoff, South By Southwest has been canceled by the city of Austin amid the spread of COVID-19 — aka Coronavirus.
via MarketWatch:
“I have declared a local disaster in the city, and associated with that, I have issued an order that cancels South by Southwest for this year,” Austin Mayor Steve Adler said at a news conference Friday afternoon.
“’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,” SXSW organizers said in a statement. “We are now working through the ramifications of this unprecedented situation.”
One option organizers are exploring is to reschedule the event and possibly provide a virtual SXSW experience “as soon as possible for 2020 participants,” SXSW said in a statement.
Coachella is still scheduled to take place April 10-12 and 17-19, in California — we’ll see if that gets cancelled also.
