{"id":804982,"date":"2020-03-06T15:10:06","date_gmt":"2020-03-06T22:10:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=963951"},"modified":"2020-03-06T15:10:06","modified_gmt":"2020-03-06T22:10:06","slug":"sxsw-cancelled-over-coronavirus-concerns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/music-news\/sxsw-cancelled-over-coronavirus-concerns\/","title":{"rendered":"SXSW Cancelled Over Coronavirus Concerns"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Amid attendance cancellations from major companies across the technology, film and music industries in light of health fears from the ongoing coronavirus<\/a>, representatives for the city of Austin announced that it would be canceling<\/span> <\/b>the festival in a press conference on Friday afternoon. <\/span><\/p>\n

With hundreds of thousands of expected attendees from around the world, SXSW<\/a>\u2019s <\/span>cancellation is the largest single blow to the festival and live music<\/a> industry since the coronavirus pandemic started in China. <\/span>Austin Mayor Steve Adler declared a state of disaster for the city, he told the press on Friday, which effectively cancels the festival for this year.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really unfortunate to be canceling South by Southwest,\u201d Adler said. \u201cIt\u2019s a really important event to our city in a lot of ways, tied who we are in this city, but I really look forward to the next iteration of South by when it comes back again.\u201d<\/p>\n

SXSW issued their own statement via Twitter: \u201cThis is the first time in 34 years that the March event will not take place. \u2026 We are committed to do our part to protect our staff, attendees and fellow Austinites.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

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Until this past week, the virus had mainly impacted the live scene in Europe and Asia, but with rising infection and death counts in the United States, the American industry has grown warier. Ultra Music Festival<\/a> in Miami was officially, indefinitely suspended Friday morning, following requests from local officials to postpone the event.<\/span><\/p>\n

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An Update on SXSW 2020. Please read our full statement here: https:\/\/t.co\/P56nF8KFmE<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/ouJPKM9GNy<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 SXSW (@sxsw) March 6, 2020<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The number of coronavirus cases has surpassed 100,000 globally, according to the Wall Street Journal<\/em><\/a>, with 260<\/a> in the U.S. Fifteen people in the U.S. have died, 14 in Washington State. There have been 17 confirmed coronavirus cases in Texas, according to the New York Times<\/em>. <\/span><\/p>\n

SXSW\u2019s announcement comes as many of its most high-profile attendees announced they would no longer attend. Facebook and Twitter were two of the first from the tech sector to pull out, later joined by TikTok, Apple<\/a>, Amazon and Netflix.<\/span><\/p>\n

The music industry<\/a> was one of the last holdouts for the festival, but its will had eroded as well. Warner Music Group told employees in an internal memo on Thursday that it would be canceling its attendance for employees. \u201cMany of our partners are reaching similar conclusions, which also means the benefits of attending would be much reduced,\u201d WMG chief Human Resources officer Masha Osherova wrote in the memo<\/a>.  WMG has not officially mandated any of its artists to cancel attendance. <\/span><\/p>\n

While Universal and Sony, the other two of the \u201cmajor three\u201d record companies, hadn\u2019t issued official statements, sources close to the situation told <\/span>Rolling Stone <\/span><\/i>Thursday evening that the record company was likely going to pull out of the festival as well. Major music reporting rights company BMI also announced its SXSW cancelation on Friday. <\/span><\/p>\n

SXSW plays a significant role in the Austin economy each year, and the festival\u2019s postponing will no doubt put a hefty dent in the city\u2019s economy. Last year\u2019s festival brought in nearly $356 million to the city of Austin, according to a report from SXSW. <\/a><\/p>\n

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Popular on Rolling Stone <\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amid attendance cancellations from major companies across the technology, film and music industries in light of health fears from the ongoing coronavirus, representatives for the city of Austin announced that it would be canceling the festival in a press conference on Friday afternoon.  With hundreds of thousands of expected attendees from around the world, SXSW\u2019s cancellation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-804982","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-19 19:28:03","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=804982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804982\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=804982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=804982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=804982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}