South by Southwest, despite coronavirus, will go on
Coronavirus has killed at least 10 Americans and infected tens of thousands globally
Headline-making multimedia festival South by Southwest will go forward as planned despite coronavirus fears after many prominent businesses dropped out of the conference taking place in Austin, Texas, in mid-March.
An SXSW spokesperson directed FOX Business to its website when asked about organizers' plans to keep attendees safe in light of the global coronavirus outbreak.
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"SXSW is working closely on a daily basis with local, state, and federal agencies to plan for a safe event," the website says. "As a result of this dialogue and the recommendations of Austin Public Health, we are proceeding with the 2020 event with the health and safety of our attendees, staff, and volunteers as our top priority."
A man in a white hat shakes hands with people at San Antonio International Airport Tuesday, March 3, 2020 as he gets off a bus that arrived from JBSA-Lackland. (William Luther/The San Antonio Express-News via AP)
Companies that had pulled out of SXSW as of Wednesday include:
"Due to concerns regarding the coronavirus, we’ve decided to cancel the Mashable House and MashBash at SXSW," Mashable posted on its official Twitter account on Tuesday. "This was a really tough call, but safety is our top priority."
Twitter's withdrawal comes as the company is "strongly encouraging" employees to work from home. Remote work is mandatory for employees based in its Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea offices partly due to government restriction, the company said.
New York Times best-selling author Tim Ferriss dropped out of the festival citing fears that SXSW will make Austin a "hostpot" for the virus.
"I love SXSW, but I don't believe the novel coronavirus can be contained, and I view an [international] event of 100K+ people as a huge risk to attendees and the entire city, given limited ICU beds, etc.," Ferriss wrote on Twitter.
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"I implore [Mayor Steve Adler] and his team to carefully evaluate the downsides. SXSW brings huge economic benefit to Austin, but possibly making Austin a hotspot for SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19, and the emergency actions [and] funding that would require, could make a huge event seem shortsighted," Ferriss continued.
Coronavirus has killed at least 10 Americans and infected tens of thousands globally. Amazon and other big companies are trying to keep their employees healthy by banning business trips, but they've dealt a gut punch to a travel industry already reeling from the virus outbreak.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.