City of Austin Pulls The Plug On SXSW Amid Coronavirus Concerns

South by Southwest (SXSW), an annual tech, film and music conference held in Austin, Texas, has officially been cancelled due to the coronavirus outbreak.

The City of Austin cancelled the event, which was originally scheduled for March 13-22, and an official statement shared to the SXSW website states that SXSW “will faithfully follow the city’s directions.”

The news comes just hours after the Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI) announced that the Tin Pan South Songwriters Festival is being rescheduled due to concerns over the virus as well as the recent tornadoes in Middle Tennessee.

“We are devastated to share this news with you. ‘The show must go on’ is in our DNA, and this is the first time in 34 years that the March event will not take place,” the SXSW statement reads. “We are now working through the ramifications of this unprecedented situation.”

Singer/songwriter Margo Price was among the artists scheduled to appear at the event. In previous years, SXSW has hosted a number of country artists and personalities, including Charles Esten, Midland and Sam Hunt (among others).

Several tech companies that were scheduled to partake in the event recently pulled out due to travel restrictions. According to FOX 5, Twitter was the first to cancel and Facebook, Intel, Vevo and Mashable quickly followed suit.

SXSW is currently exploring options to reschedule the event. For additional information on the cancellation, click HERE.

At the time of publication, there are currently 101,914 current cases of coronavirus worldwide and 242 active, confirmed cases in the United States.