Austin’s Premiere Event SXSW Cancelled Because Of Coronavirus

One of Austin's premiere events has been cancelled due to fears over Covid-19.

The City of Austin announced the cancellation of the March dates for SXSW and SXSW EDU Friday afternoon on Twitter. The 34 year old music, film, and business event will not be held for the first time in the event's history. Officials with SXSW said that earlier this week Austin's Public Health Department said there "was no evidence that closing SXSW or any other gatherings will make the community safer.” Because of the growing numbers of people who are being infected with the virus and concerns over travel, officials say they want to protect their staff, attendees, and fellow Austinites.

That's the bad news. The good news is SXSW officials are looking at their options for possibly rescheduling the event. They are also working on putting together a virtual SXSW online experience. The event was supposed to be next weekend, so that means a lot of people who have already booked flights and hotels will be scrambling to cancel their plans. If you've already made your plans, you should call your airline and hotel as soon as possible to see if you can cancel without any fallout. There will be an updated list of FAQs coming from SXSW officials. We'll update this article as soon as we get information about refunds from the event organizers.

You can keep up with all the developing news about SXSW by clicking here for their Twitter page, or clicking here for their event page.