By Kimberly Chin
Major conferences, festivals and sporting events are being
canceled or postponed around the globe as the novel coronavirus
continues to spread, leading companies to curtail nonessential
trips and virus-hit countries to restrict travel.
From Beijing to San Francisco to Geneva, the cancellations are
threatening billions of dollars in lost revenue for local
economies.
Here's a list of some of the events that have canceled or
postponed their plans.
Tech
Austin, Texas, canceled the 34th annual South by Southwest
festival (SXSW) after tech companies, including Facebook Inc.,
Apple Inc., Netflix Inc. and Twitter Inc. said their employees
wouldn't attend, and more than 50,000 signed a petition urging that
it be called off. The music, tech and film festival was to run from
March 13 to 22, with events planned across Austin at bars, party
spaces and a convention center.
Alphabet Inc.'s Google canceled its annual developer's
conference, Google I/O -- its flagship event for the year, which
was slated for May adjacent to the company's Mountain View, Calif.,
headquarters for roughly 7,000 attendees.
Facebook canceled the in-person component of its F8 Developers
Conference, set for May 5-6 in San Jose, Calif., and will focus on
"locally hosted events, videos and live-streamed content."
Adobe Inc. canceled the live-event component of its annual
event, Adobe Summit, that was scheduled to start in Las Vegas March
29, opting to host the entire event online instead.
The Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, which was
slated to start March 16 , was postponed to the summer after major
participants including "Fortnite" maker Epic Games Inc., Microsoft
Corp. and Activision Blizzard Inc. withdrew their
participation.
In Spain, cancellation of the Mobile World Congress deprived
Barcelona of its busiest annual event, after big companies
including AT&T Inc. and Deutsche Telekom AG pulled out.
Organizers had forecast it would generate $546 million regionally
and create more than 14,000 part-time jobs.
Business
The Milken Institute Global Conference said the event,
originally scheduled for Beverly Hills in early May, has been
rescheduled for July 7 through July 10. The annual gathering brings
together leaders in business, government, science, philanthropy and
academia from around the world.
The New York International Auto Show, one of the car industry's
largest U.S. gatherings, will be postponed until later this year,
organizers said. The annual car show, which attracts hundreds of
thousands of consumers each year and is an important stop for
car-industry executives unveiling new models, was supposed to take
place in early April.
The two-week Geneva International Motor Show, slated for March 5
through March 15, was canceled after the government banned public
gatherings of more than 1,000 people. The event attracts more than
500,000 visitors annually and was expected to generate between $209
million and $261 million in economic activity.
The energy conference CERAWeek was canceled for the first time
since it began, in 1983. IHS Markit, the organizer of CERAWeek,
estimated it will lose $50 million in nonrecurring revenue because
of the event and others it has canceled because of the coronavirus,
including a shipping conference scheduled for March 1-2 in Long
Beach, Calif. It will fully refund CERAWeek participants, whose
standard attendance costs average $8,500.
Natural Products Expo West, the world's largest natural and
organic foods and products trade show, initially chose to go
forward in Anaheim, Calif., this week, even as it estimated that as
many as 60% of the expected 87,000 attendees wouldn't come. But
late Monday, organizer New Hope Network called it off, planning to
reschedule it sometime before summer.
Cultural Events
Ireland's government canceled all St. Patrick's Day parades,
including Dublin's. The annual events usually take place between
March 13-17. Boston, which has a large Irish-American community,
canceled its parade, too.
Southern California's Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival
said late Tuesday it will postpone the annual live music event to
October due to coronavirus worries. The world's top-grossing music
festival was due to begin on April 10.
Pearl Jam postponed a 17-date arena tour of North America that
was supposed to kick off in Toronto, Canada, March 18.
The International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights,
slated for March 6-15 in Geneva, and Think Cinema Lausanne
("Rencontres 7e Art Lausanne"), set for March 4-8, were both
canceled.
The Ultra Music Festival in Miami was canceled this year. The
21-year-old electronic music festival will return next year, March
26-28.
Politics and Government
The U.S. said it is shifting a gathering of the Group of Seven
foreign ministers, which had been scheduled for March 24 and 25 in
Pittsburgh, to a virtual meeting.
The Practising Law Institute and the Securities Exchange
Commission canceled their SEC Speaks 2020 conference, originally
scheduled for March 30-31 in Washington, D.C. The organizers said
they planned to reschedule the program for this summer.
Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden canceled rallies in Cleveland
Tuesday, ahead of Ohio's primary next week. Other political events
also have been canceled or postponed. President Trump , who has
held 11 rallies so far in 2020 and hasn't gone longer than two
weeks without one this year, had none of his signature campaign
gatherings scheduled as of Monday morning.
The AFL-CIO canceled Thursday's Democratic presidential
candidate forum in Orlando, Fla. Both Mr. Biden and Mr. Sanders had
planned to attend.
A Women for Trump bus tour scheduled to go through Michigan,
Ohio and Pennsylvania early this week was postponed, but the
campaign said that change was for scheduling reasons.
The Trump administration postponed the US-ASEAN Summit in Las
Vegas on March 14, which connects the leaders of the Association of
Southeast Asian nations.
Sports
The U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee indefinitely
postponed a multiday media event set to start next week in Los
Angeles and feature more than 115 athletes.
Meanwhile, four major U.S. sports leagues -- the National
Basketball Association, Major League Baseball, the National Hockey
League and Major League Soccer -- said team locker rooms and
clubhouses will be restricted to only players and essential
employees until further notice. Media access to those areas will be
restricted to designated areas.
Johns Hopkins, host of three games in the Division III men's
National Collegiate Athletics Association tournament this weekend,
banned spectators on its own initiative in part because one team,
Yeshiva University, had canceled classes after a student tested
positive for the virus (Yeshiva advanced to the Sweet 16).
The NCAA men's Division I "March Madness" tournament is played
at neutral sites across the country over three consecutive
weekends, and CBS and Turner Sports paid $8.8 billion for the
rights to broadcast the games through 2032. NCAA Chief Medical
Officer Brian Hainline said over the weekend that proceeding with
the tournament with no fans was "very unlikely" and that canceling
was off the table.
The BNP Paribas Open , a major tennis tournament that was
scheduled to take place in Indian Wells, Calif., starting this
week, was canceled after local health officials declared a public
health emergency in the Coachella Valley because of a confirmed
case of the coronavirus.
Formula One has said its upcoming Grand Prix in Bahrain will be
closed to spectators. The Chinese Grand Prix, which had been
scheduled for April, was postponed.
FIFA said Monday it would postpone the Asian qualifiers for the
2022 World Cup in Qatar.
www.fifa.com/worldcup/news/update-on-upcoming-fifa-world-cup-qualifiers
The International Ice Hockey Federation canceled the women's
world hockey championships in Canada scheduled for the end of the
month.
Japan and the International Olympic Committee have said the
Tokyo Olympics, scheduled to run from July 24 through August 9,
will go on, though there have been discussions about holding
competitions without spectators or even postponing the event by a
year or two. The Olympic Flame Lighting Ceremony, where the torch
for the Tokyo game is lit in Olympia, Greece, on March 12, will be
closed to the public.
Media and Entertainment
The Royal Television Society Programme Awards in London on March
17 will be held behind closed doors and only nominees and RTS
representatives are allowed to attend.
The London Book Fair, one of the world's largest international
literary events, was canceled. The event was set for March 10-12.
The event draws around 25,000 publishers, authors and agents from
around the world.
The Series Mania Festival, which attracts around 80,000
festival-goers and was set to run from March 20-28 in Lille,
France, was canceled because of government restrictions on large
gatherings and travel restrictions for international
participants.
A+E Networks canceled the live proceedings of its Upfront event,
which was slated for March 25, opting instead to hold a Virtual
Upfront beginning the week of March 23.
On Wednesday, the Electronic Entertainment Expo -- better known
as E3 -- was called off. Scheduled for June 9-11 in Los Angeles,
the event organized by Entertainment Software Association is a
major venue for new hardware and software announcements. Last year
it drew around 66,100 attendees.
Write to Kimberly Chin at kimberly.chin@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 11, 2020 12:45 ET (16:45 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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