In a news conference this afternoon, city officials have officially called to cancel annual South by Southwest conference in Austin, Texas. According to USA Today, it was “a medical and data driven decision.”
Major players had already pulled out of the conference, including Twitter, Facebook, and Amazon, but the conference claimed it was going to continue as scheduled, even booking more speakers between the aforementioned cancellations and now.
As a result of the cancellation, “caterers, ride-hailing drivers, bartenders and servers, tech crew and security staff,” and many others who rely on SXSW for large influxes of income over a short period of time will be strapped.
The 10-day festival was set to begin March 13.
via USA Today