Facebook and Twitter pull out of the SXSW conference citing COVID-19 concerns; event organizers say the conference is proceeding as planned
with fewer panels and smaller crowds Tweets: @austin360 : Amazon Studios has canceled events at #SXSW, according to a Variety report https://www.austin360.com/... Jeremy Kaplan / @smashdawg : Intel's out of SXSW: “After careful consideration, we have withdrawn from on-site activities at this year's SXSW. We are grateful to SXSW for their understanding and look forward to attending and supporting future events.” @sxsw : SXSW 2020 is proceeding as planned. Please keep up with information around our response to COVID-19 at our COVID-19 Attendee Information page. https://www.sxsw.com/... https://twitter.com/... Dan Solomon / @dansolomon : Okay, we should talk for a second about what canceling SXSW would *really* be like https://www.texasmonthly.com/ ... @texasmonthly : Suspending SXSW amid coronavirus fears would be The Big One for Austin's economy. Bars, restaurants, and hotels would take a hit, but the economy that's built around SXSW is significantly more diffuse and working-class than that. https://www.texasmonthly.com/ ... Seth Mandel / @sethamandel : quarantine Seattle https://twitter.com/... @outline : The coronavirus gives us a tremendous opportunity to do what the death of the hipster couldn't: cancel South by Southwest. https://theoutline.com/... Rat King / @mikeisaac : mark Zuckerberg posts Facebook's efforts around the coronavirus, which include: — giving free FB ads to WHO — blocking misinformation exploiting coronavirus emergency — studying how anonymized FB data can help show how the virus is spreading https://www.facebook.com/... https://twitter.com/... Adam Mosseri / @mosseri : Mark shared details about Facebook's response to the coronavirus, including pointing people to accurate information from the World Health Organization and giving WHO and other organizations as many free ads as they need for their coronavirus responses: https://www.facebook.com/.... @kerrymflynn : Latest email from SXSW: “SXSW 2020 is just ten days away. We understand that people have questions about COVID-19 and how we're approaching the event. Safety is a top priority, and we have established a COVID-19 Attendee Information page on our site...” Business as usual... Ben Thompson / @benthompson : Holding a conference that attracts 100,000 people in Seattle next week is reckless and negligent. https://www.geekwire.com/... Jeff Jarvis / @jeffjarvis : I stopped going to SXSW about nine years ago because it got too greedy, growing too big, raising its prices too high, losing its sense of itself. Now I fear it is losing its soul by moving ahead in spite of COVID-19. https://www.sxsw.com/... Noah Kulwin / @nkulw : Coronavirus must do what humanity has failed to accomplish thus far: cancel SXSW. https://theoutline.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Facebook is now three weeks into a rolling retreat from physical events: it scrapped its Global Marketing Summit at Moscone Center, pulled out of GDC alongside Sony, and canceled F8 in favor of locally hosted events and livestreams. The SXSW withdrawal extends that pattern to the industry's biggest shared stage, with Twitter, Intel, and Amazon Studios making the same call within days of each other.
The standoff is the story: organizers insist SXSW 2020 is proceeding as planned while the companies that anchor its tech programming exit one by one. When the anchor tenants of a conference withdraw, the organizer's 'as planned' position becomes a bet that enough attendees and exhibitors will still show up — a bet Austin itself was soon forced to revisit at the city level.
First-order effects
- SXSW loses its marquee tech panels and speakers — Facebook, Twitter, Intel, and Amazon Studios are all off the program — and the event's promised smaller crowds and reduced panels fall on the remaining exhibitors and Austin's hospitality businesses.
Second-order effects
- Every remaining confirmed attendee now faces the same reputational calculus the four withdrawing companies just made, pulling more big-name exhibitors toward the exit and accelerating the crowd shrinkage organizers are trying to avoid.
Third-order effects
- Facebook's stated playbook — cancel the physical gathering, substitute livestreamed content and local events — is becoming the template for the whole conference calendar, shifting leverage from event organizers and host cities to corporate risk and communications teams.
The trend: Corporate COVID-19 risk decisions, rather than conference organizers, are now setting the schedule for tech's 2020 event season, with livestreams substituting for physical stages.