Major Events Cancelled Amid Coronavirus Outbreak

Despite the fact that many companies, including Apple, Netflix, Amazon and Facebook have reportedly pulled out of South by Southwest amid the coronavirus outbreak, the annual tech, film and music conference/festival will proceed as planned, according to public health officials from the host city Austin.

SXSW is scheduled to take place from March 13 to March 22 and normally attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors, with the tech convention alone pulling 74,000 attendants last year. This year it will almost certainly see smaller crowds though, as many people refrain from attending mass gatherings during an ongoing epidemic.

As the following chart shows, SXSW would be an exception if it really were to go ahead as planned. In recent weeks, many international trade shows and conferences have been cancelled or postponed and it wouldn’t be a surprise if more events fall victim to the coronavirus in the weeks/months to come.