
Calls to Cancel SXSW Intensify as Facebook, Twitter Pull Out, 30K Sign Petition - grej
https://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2020/03/calls-to-cancel-sxsw-intensify-as-facebook-twitter-pull-out-30k-sign-petition.html
======
gkoberger
I tried to cancel (citing concerns not about myself, but Austin), and got this
response. The last line putting it on me felt odd.

\---

Hello,

Thank you for reaching out to us.

We understand your concerns. We recognize the disruption that the Coronavirus
(COVID-19) has caused, and we sympathize with all affected.

Safety is a top priority for SXSW. We are working closely with local, state,
and federal agencies to plan for a safe event.

The SXSW 2020 event is proceeding as planned. The World Health Organization’s
recommendation is that travelers practice usual precautions. We will continue
to monitor the situation closely and will provide updates as necessary.

Please also see the City of Austin’s Public Health Reminders from February 6,
February 14, and February 25, and their COVID-19 FAQ, updated February 28.

We have a no refund policy as part of our terms and conditions, so we are
unable to reimburse you for your purchase. However, you can transfer your
registration to another person.

We hope to see you at SXSW 2020, but understand that the decision to attend is
yours to make.

~~~
philpem
I've seen very similar form letters from other conventions. Largely they all
lean on each other -- "they don't offer refunds so neither will we" \-- but
the bigger factor is that the convention probably doesn't have the money to
refund people.

Most fan-run conventions run on a barely-above-breakeven budget at the best of
times.

I'm not intending this as an excuse, merely an explanation for people who may
not have been involved in the organisation of a convention, or been close to
people who have.

With that perspective in mind, I find it hard to blame them. A wave of
panicked attendees demanding refunds could well render them insolvent.

~~~
diebeforei485
SXSW is not a small fan-run convention though. They almost certainly carry
insurance for this kind of thing.

~~~
SilasX
Right, but that doesn't mean there aren't remaining incentives that tempt
unscrupulous organizers.

Insurance, if underwritten correctly, just turns a crippling loss into a
moderate loss, not into a break-even.

------
crazygringo
I can understand why people want refunds (it's not their fault), but also
understand why SXSW may find it financially impossible to cancel (it's not
their fault either).

To be honest, this is the type of call that ought to be made by governments,
not individually by private citizens/organizations. Either all conferences
nationwide should be cancelled, or none, but that's not a decision any can
make individually.

If this is a national emergency, let's take national responsibility and share
the burden nationally. Have the government shut down conferences, if that's
the right call, and use tax dollars to reimburse the conference organizers to
a reasonable level, that they are also forced to use to reimburse attendees to
a reasonable level.

Really, how is this any different from flooding or hurricane damage that gets
federal money to rebuild? A national emergency is a national emergency,
period.

~~~
lgats
Really shouldn't conferences be paying for insurance against X?

~~~
mongol
Force majeure. If that would not be in insurance agreements then every
insurance company in the world could go broke in case of a pandemic.

~~~
joquarky
Shouldn't actuaries take this possibility into account?

~~~
mongol
I am sure they do and that is why it exist. Basically, it is an exemption for
Black Swan events that affects a lot of people at the same time.

------
wpietri
I was honestly amazed to hear that it's still going on. Everybody knows that
conferences are giant petri dishes. I know some people who just book time to
get sick after a major conference.

I'm sure that a ton of people have bet money on SXSW, of course, so doing the
right global thing could be very painful personally. But I think that's
exactly the kind of thing government should step in and solve. However bad not
doing SXSW would be for the local economy, a pandemic would be way worse.

~~~
wlesieutre
_> Everybody knows that conferences are giant petri dishes. I know some people
who just book time to get sick after a major conference._

Common enough occurrence that it's been named "con-plague".

Even in a good year it's almost expected to catch something at an event that
brings so many people into close quarters.

~~~
asdfman123
Conferences are all about cross-pollination. Sometimes it's ideas, sometimes
it's serious illnesses.

~~~
Seenso
> Conferences are all about cross-pollination. Sometimes it's ideas, sometimes
> it's serious illnesses.

Just like open offices.

------
simplecto
The sheer greed of SXSW will push this festival through no matter what. Talk
to any Austinites running local businesses and they will tell you horror
stories of code enforcement, law suits, and outright bullying from the SXSW
brand.

~~~
fortran77
It may not be sheer greed. It may put them out of business forever.

~~~
cliffy
Should we prioritize the survival of human beings over corporations?

~~~
yoavm
I don't think that's what the parent comment is suggesting. Instead they're
saying that it might not be greed in the sense of "wanting to make an extra 5%
no matter what" but a lose-the-whole-business question. That's not to say it's
not the right thing to do, but it does help to realize that the picture isn't
so black and white.

~~~
fortran77
Nobody is being forced to go to SXSW, get sick, and die. This is simply about
who foots the bill.

------
CPLX
While I think this is an interesting and important topic, and a complicated
judgement call, I'm trying to figure out why a random internet poll is playing
a serious role in the conversation.

~~~
senordevnyc
As a proxy for the sentiments of the hundreds of thousands of stakeholders
(aka regular people) who don't have corporate PR departments to make their
views known?

~~~
CPLX
Or a proxy for a few hundred Austin residents who are annoyed by the traffic
jams. Or as a proxy for bots representing a competing conference. Or who
knows. That's kind of the problem with random internet polls.

------
jaworrom
I just got word that the Adobe Summit 2020 conference I was set to attend has
been canceled. I believe the event had ~17,000 attendees last year, which is
but a fraction of the SXSW attendance. Most of the attendees are based in the
US too...

~~~
karlding
Adobe Summit 2020's cancellation was also discussed on HN yesterday [0].

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22470462](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22470462)

~~~
fortran77
These get canceled because employers don't want the liability if they require
attendance at a conference and a person gets very ill.

The majority of people at SXSW are there for recreational/personal reasons and
are not directed to go there from an employer.

~~~
dvtrn
Except, you know...for the people working local venues and establishments
during SXSW, right?

~~~
michaelt
I think it's that employees who get flown to $1000-a-ticket conferences by
their employers get treated better by their employers than food service
workers.

~~~
dvtrn
I wholly understand that, I'm speaking directly to the employees who live and
work in Austin and very likely wont have their shifts cancelled like those
$1000-ticket holders would (speaking from experience).

Sorry, somehow I keep forgetting that trying to bring up the fact that there
are classes of people not making software engineer money that would be just as
affected by some of the hypotheticals on HN is a no-no.

~~~
ghaff
They don’t really enter into the calculus for running or not running these
events but there are a huge number of local people who provide food/drink,
security, audio, janitorial, registration, etc. for these events who lose a
week of work when events are canceled—probably with no compensation.

~~~
dvtrn
_They don’t really enter into the calculus for running or not running these
events_

I would beg to differ as many "official" SXSW events rely on local venues to
host them, Austin Texas is not a large city, geographically. It's just very
_dense_. There is not a surplus of concert and event space outside of
Auditorium Shores and the Long Center for keynotes and expos.

Otherwise, the festival HEAVILY relies on local establishments and venues in
order to even exist; especially for SXSW Music. Again, speaking from direct
experience having worked as a crew lead at sxsw for 12 years, local venues are
critical to the success of this festival. And that's where many of these
people work. Their availability and their health absolutely factors in, or at
least it _should_.

The workforce behind this festival extends from stage and production crews to
bartenders and hosts to unpaid volunteers who live in Austin and simply want
to be a part of the festivities (since volunteering qualifies you for free
access to certain events, depending on your role) and whose sole job is
interacting with festival goers providing direction or interacting directly
with people, handling brochures, exchanging money at registers or checking
badges.

Downplaying the impact to the local community and the local workers who make
the festival happen behind the scenes isn't fair.

~~~
ghaff
I think you’re violently agreeing with me. I meant that, even SXSW aside, the
decisions being made to cancel or not cancel tech events is almost certainly
not taking the local impact into account.

~~~
dvtrn
Expanding the point ;)

But it's a shame, really. I get why such a petition would exist, I also don't
envy the position Addler finds himself in these days.

~~~
ghaff
I would not want to be an event organizer these days. None of these decisions
are easy.

~~~
dvtrn
I mean, small industry events can be a blast and pay really well. In 2014 I
put together a crew who ran production for the Austin Technology Council CEO
Awards show, it was a small affair for about 30 startups and the ATC, no more
than about 200 people.

If you can get a reliable crew and know what you're doing, it can be kind of
fun and rewarding with a great deal of technical autonomy.

As I get older part of me wonders if it makes sense to just focus on small
corporate events to supplement the daily DevOps job.

------
pcmaffey
What about sporting events? 20k people gathering every night in cities all
around the country. Are the NBA, NHL, NCAA just going to cancel playoffs? Or
play in front of empty stadiums?

~~~
icebraining
Top soccer teams have been playing in empty stadiums, so why not?

[https://www.pennlive.com/sports/2020/02/italian-soccer-
game-...](https://www.pennlive.com/sports/2020/02/italian-soccer-game-played-
in-empty-stadium-due-to-virus-fears.html)

~~~
dmix
Italy has 2000+ cases and the US only has 100+.

[https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/world/coronavirus-m...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/world/coronavirus-
maps.html)

[https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594...](https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6)

I understand this might be because of lack of testing in North America (Canada
too) but it still makes a big difference with per capita rates like that in
Northern Italy scaring people.

------
busterarm
I'm at a small ~500 attendee conference today and I'd say only about 2/3 of
everyone bothered to show up. We're here in NYC where we just had our first
covid19 cases.

People are scared.

~~~
outside1234
No - they are responsible. It is irresponsible to show up to these events when
the mortality rate for 70+ year olds is so high for the virus.

These events just exponentially multiply community transmission so while
everyone there might be 30ish and just gets a bad flu, the bigger point is
that they are spreading it to their communities at home and disproportionately
at-risk populations.

~~~
davidw
Also - and this is critical - the more it can be slowed down, the less likely
it is that the health system gets overloaded, which would lead to more deaths
than if the exact same quantity of people become sick over a more drawn out
period of time.

------
ritchiea
What does SXSW even do for the tech industry? Is it just advertising for
companies and people peddling themselves as influencers?

~~~
steveklabnik
Remember that SXSW is more than just tech. It is like three connected
conferences: music, film, and "interactive" aka tech.

~~~
ritchiea
Oh yea I agree, SXSW music & film are great. But as someone who’s been to SXSW
I don’t understand the point of SXSW “interactive”. And in this article it’s
talking about big tech companies backing out.

Really what I’m saying is who cares if tech pulls out? Its the worst part of
the conference. I can’t imagine anyone other than Austin beer & discount ice
sculpture sellers would mind if SXSW interactive disappeared forever.

~~~
steveklabnik
That's fair. I think that, like many things, it's very important to a specific
group of people, and irrelevant to many others. For a long time, SXSW was the
cool place to launch your startup, and many people who still run in those
circles remember launching their startups there, and have fond memories, etc.

------
hugh4life
A bit OT, but the World Figure Skating Championships are being held in
Montreal at about the exact same time as SXSW is suppose to be held(a couple
weeks in mid-March). Which is fine by me. They're taking a lot of precautions
but a lot of these people who attend these events come from east-asian
countries... especially Japan. And they don't offer refunds on tickets which I
think could result in quite a few people attending because of the "sunk cost"
mentality that they don't want to lose what they paid for.

Governments are extremely reluctant to restrict travel and thus event
organizers too are reluctant to do much more if it affects how much money they
make.

I live nowhere near Montreal, but if I did I would lobby the local governments
to see what can be done to reduce travel from the most affected countries.

------
alexandercrohde
One established possibility is that corona won't be contained. With 2009 H1N1
outbreak it spread quickly, eventually to an estimated 11 to 21% of the global
population.

H1N1 turned out to be much milder than initially feared, causing little more
than runny noses and coughs in most people. And H1N1 is now so commonplace,
it's simply seen as a part of the seasonal flus that come and go every year
among the global population.

If you're of this school of thought, then the panic may seem a bit much.

[1] [https://www.adn.com/nation-world/2020/03/02/how-is-the-
coron...](https://www.adn.com/nation-world/2020/03/02/how-is-the-coronavirus-
outbreak-going-to-end-heres-how-similar-epidemics-played-out/)

~~~
brogrammernot
Except there’s enough cases now that show that isn’t the case. The H1N1 was
more “mild” than the speculation but COVId-19 isn’t. H1N1 also managed to be
starved out more or less, but so far that doesn’t seem to be a real
possibility for COVID-19.

If the olympics are being considered to be postponed, and tons of large
conferences have already been canceled paired with companies stopping all
international travel & discouraging domestic travel that’s more than enough
evidence that the right thing to do is cancel your event.

The thing that a lot of folks seem to be missing is as a healthy, young adult
you’re probably going to be fine if you get it and take care of yourself. With
a longer incubation period than H1N1 though, you’re more likely to spread it
to others who may be immunocompromised or at risk if they get it. That’s the
risk with a conference, you can end up infecting many folks who infect other
folks leading to high death rates.

The only way you don’t do that is you start to make the hard but right
decisions to cancel events. China acted very quickly with quarantines outside
of Wuhan, which is why the numbers are not growing at the same rate it was
previously. There will surely be a second spike with spring break & other
travels in the spring as China re-opens more areas but this isn’t going away,
it’s only going to stay at the same rate or get worse over the next 6-8 weeks.

~~~
carapace
> The thing that a lot of folks seem to be missing is as a healthy, young
> adult you’re probably going to be fine if you get it and take care of
> yourself. With a longer incubation period than H1N1 though, you’re more
> likely to spread it to others who may be immunocompromised or at risk if
> they get it. That’s the risk with a conference, you can end up infecting
> many folks who infect other folks leading to high death rates.

Yeah, this! It's worth repeating.

------
mdorazio
There’s so much money tied up in SXSW for the entire city that I’m sure
there’s a ton of pressure to keep it on no matter what.

~~~
marklacey
They may be insured. However they may also have a large deductible and need to
eat quite a few costs.

~~~
luch
most insurance companies will play the "force majeure" card in order to exempt
themselves from reimbursing clients.

No insurance company is solvable against a global pandemic event.

~~~
btilly
_No insurance company is solvable against a global pandemic event._

Except Berkshire Hathaway:

[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-berkshire-buffett-
insuran...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-berkshire-buffett-
insurance/buffett-says-berkshire-can-handle-400-billion-mega-catastrophe-
idUSKCN1G80RA)

If Warren Buffett himself survives, I expect to see his shareholder letter
next year talking about how their losses notwithstanding, COVID-19 left
Berkshire Hathaway in a stronger position relative to the rest of the
insurance industry, and has improved their outlook for the future.

------
Mvandenbergh
If the event is cancelled by the city or other government body there is
probably event insurance which is triggered which can pay for refunds. Events
like this, even ones with lots of sponsorship and corporate interest, do not
usually have high margins. As a result, any cash they have right now is needed
to pay their suppliers.

I doubt they have money to refund more than a fraction of tickets. The
responsible thing is for the local government to cancel it. Ideally SXSW would
make this decision but ultimately they are not public health experts.

------
cbsks
> "The pressure to cancel SXSW over coronavirus concerns intensified this week
> with Twitter and Facebook issuing corporate travel bans including the
> gathering"

Can anyone from Twitter or Facebook comment about what travel ban their
employer has implemented? I work for a smaller tech company which has
cancelled all international travel, and implemented a 14 day quarantine (i.e.
mandatory work from home) for any employees returning from abroad. But we
don't have any restrictions on traveling domestically.

------
btilly
By contrast here is what a small conference is doing right now:

[https://www.cesmii.org/cesmii-2020-annual-
meeting/](https://www.cesmii.org/cesmii-2020-annual-meeting/)

Doing this at the current time is a little premature to be so worried, but the
general idea is sensible.

------
eganist
Their unwillingness to cancel points to a deeper problem, and I don't think
that problem is greed.

I'm convinced it's an insurance restriction.

Anyone know SXSW's umbrella insurance provider?

------
lma21
I also wonder why KubeCon EU haven’t cancelled their conference in Amsterdam
happening next month as well..

------
naveen99
Maybe we should cancel large gatherings every flu season.

------
nikolay
Money before people - nothing new under the sun!

------
outside1234
It's just irresponsible that SXSW and KubeCon (Amsterdam) have not canceled.
There should be public shaming of the leaders of these large events.

------
durpleDrank
Why aren't people covering their mouths and washing their hands?! I see so
many people on the metro behave so carelessly.

------
MockObject
Nobody goes to SXSW anymore, it's too crowded these days.

------
ausjke
SXSW organizers should be sued by the city if any outbreaks caused by this
stupid must-have event.

~~~
detaro
The city that has the power to force the event to cancel due to a health
emergency?

~~~
dublin
Austin's city government is famously unresponsive to its citizens, viz the
city's "CodeNext" building code reforms that are roundly hated by hippies,
environmentalists, businesspeople, homeowners, and liberals and conservatives
alike. Worse, SxSW pretty much calls the tune the Mayor and City Council dance
to. They'll allow SouthBy to go ahead, and the deadly fallout won't be evident
for another month or two.

~~~
biggieshellz
Not to get off topic, but the building code reforms are necessary in order to
help control the ridiculous rises in housing prices and rents here. We have
the same problem as California, where neighborhood associations want to freeze
things as they were 50 years ago, and use restrictive zoning and deed
restrictions to prevent building multi-family housing
(duplexes/fourplexes/apartments).

The city government is plenty responsive to its citizens, ~55% of whom are
renters, not homeowners, and many of whom are young people who can no longer
afford to buy in the city. The already-haves in legacy neighborhoods, who file
most of the protests and speak in front of the City Council the most, are mad
that they are being given equal consideration rather than special
consideration as they have gotten in the past.

------
gambiting
How many people go to SXSW?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22464405](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22464405)

"HIMSS 2020, a conference of ~45000 attendees from 90+ countries is still
scheduled to go forward at Orange County Convention Center Orlando March 9-13
- even as major participants withdraw from the event and Florida declares a
state emergency."

~~~
ericabiz
Total attendance for 2019 was 417,400:
[https://explore.sxsw.com/hubfs/2019-SXSW-Event-
Stats.pdf](https://explore.sxsw.com/hubfs/2019-SXSW-Event-Stats.pdf) (PDF)

I do think these stats may double-count some people, but there's no doubt it's
a gigantic conference. It's much larger than most people realize.

~~~
michaelbuckbee
That may double count some people, but it also under/fails to count the sheer
number of people that just "come into town" for the parties, networking, and
nonofficial events.

------
ipnon
"Hundreds of thousands flock to Austin for the event each year and its
economic impact to the City of Austin was $355.9 million in 2019, according to
an analysis by Greyhill Advisors and South by Southwest."

If it looks like a recession and sounds like a recession ...

It's amazing how rapidly confidence in the economy can evaporate.

