- Events are being cancelled and postponed worldwide to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus, which emerged in Wuhan, China, late last year and was labelled a pandemic by WHO in March.
- Countries across the world are enacting lockdown restrictions: Italy placed a 6 p.m. curfew on its citizens and banned all nonessential activities, France is prohibiting people from leaving their homes unless absolutely necessary, and President Trump is encouraging Americans to avoid gatherings of more than 10 people.
- The 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo are delayed to 2021, and the Cannes Film Festival and the 74th Annual Tony Awards are being postponed from their original dates in May and June, respectively.
- South by Southwest, the annual media festival in Austin, Texas, was cancelled March 6 because of the outbreak, and Coachella was postponed to the weekends of October 9 and October 16.
- Many other noteworthy events, from conferences to festivals to sporting events, have been cancelled or postponed because of the coronavirus, including Facebook’s annual F8 conference and the World Athletics Indoor Championships.
- Here’s a round-up of major events that have been cancelled or postponed because of the coronavirus outbreak so far.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
This is a developing story, check back for updates.
The Burning Man festival will not take place in-person in Nevada. Instead, Burning Man Project CEO Marian Goodell said it will be held virtually in 2020, the logistics of which are still to be determined.
Source: Burning Man Journal
The 74th Annual Tony Awards, scheduled to be aired on June 7th on CBS from Radio City Music Hall in New York, are being postponed to “a later date” that organisers say will be announced once Broadway reopens, potentially in mid April.
Source: Tony Awards Productions
The 2020 Olympics, destination Tokyo, will be rescheduled to July 23, 2021.
Source: Business Insider Australia
The Cannes International Film Festival has been postponed from its original dates of May 12-23. Organisers are discussing rescheduling the festival to June or July.
Source: Cannes
The Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival was rescheduled to September 24-27.
Source: Bonnaroo
The iHeartRadio Music Awards, slated to take place on March 29 in Los Angeles, has been indefinitely postponed, and ticket holders are being issued refunds.
Source: iHeartRadio
The Jonas Brothers cancelled their eight performance residency scheduled for April at the Park MGM in Las Vegas.
Source: Rolling Stone
The Rolling Stones postponed their upcoming ‘No Filter’ North America tour scheduled to kick off in San Diego on May 8.
Source: Billboard
The Eurovision Song Contest was cancelled for the first time since it began 64 years ago.
Source: Eurovision
Glastonbury 2020, scheduled to take place in June, was also cancelled. Organisers said that already purchased tickets will roll over to the 2021 festival.
Source: BBC
The Kentucky Derby was postponed from its original date of May 2 and rescheduled for September 5.
Source: The Kentucky Derby
The Boston Marathon was postponed from its original date of April 20 to September 14.
Source: ABC WCVB.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo has banned gatherings of more than 500 people in New York. This affects Broadway shows, which will remain suspended through at least April 12.
Source: New York Times
The New York City’s annual St. Patrick’s Day parade scheduled for March 17 was cancelled, and the organisers indicated they hope to celebrate the parade at a later date.
Source: ABC
The remainder of the NBA season was suspended after a player on the Utah Jazz tested positive for the coronavirus. A second teammate later also tested positive.
Source: CBS Sports
The NHL then postponed the rest of its season.
Source: Insider
MLB announced it was delaying the start of the 2020 season for at least two weeks.
Source: ESPN
SXSW was cancelled on March 6 over concerns about the spread of the coronavirus.
Source: Business Insider
Coachella was postponed to the weekends of October 9 and October 16 because of growing concerns about the coronavirus.
Source: Coachella/Twitter,TMZ
Tomorrowland Winter 2020 in Alpe d’Huez was cancelled. They are offering full refunds to those who had tickets, as well as discounts on future festivals.
Source: Tomorrowland
E3, the video game convention set to take place in Los Angeles in June, was also cancelled.
Source: ArsTechnica
Pearl Jam postponed the first leg of its tour, which includes shows in the US and Canada. The shows haven’t been rescheduled yet.
Source: Pearl Jam/Twitter
Avril Lavigne postponed her Asia tour, which included stops in China, Japan, Hong Kong, the Philippines, and Taiwan.
Source: Avril Lavigne
Miley Cyrus pulled out as the headliner of the World Tour Bushfire Relief charity concert in Australia, prompting the event to be cancelled.
Source: Miley Cyrus
Adobe cancelled its annual live summit because of growing concerns about the coronavirus. Instead, the entire event will take place online.
Source: Adobe
TED 2020 was originally supposed to held in Vancouver on April 20-24 but was postponed to July 20-26. The organisers said they might decide to hold the conference virtually.
Source: Global News
REV’d Up Media Summit will also take place online.
Source: Rev
Himss, a health-technology conference in Orlando, Florida, was also cancelled.
Source: CNBC
Several major corporate conferences have been cancelled or postponed because of the outbreak, including F8, Facebook’s annual conference for developers. F8 is Facebook’s biggest event of the year, and it’s set to be replaced with local events and livestreamed content.
Source: Business Insider
Facebook also cancelled its annual Global Marketing Summit in San Francisco, which was supposed to host 5,000 people.
Source: Vox
The Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, which is the biggest smartphone conference of the year, was cancelled after major companies including LG, Amazon, Sony, Ericsson, Facebook, Nvidia, MediaTek, Sprint, and Vivo pulled out of the event because of the coronavirus outbreak.
Source: Business Insider
Workday’s annual internal sales conference will be a virtual event, as the in-person conference was cancelled because of the outbreak.
Source: Business Insider
The Game Developers Conference in San Fransisco was cancelled because of the outbreak after major companies like Sony and Microsoft pulled out of the event.
Source: Vice
EmTech Asia, a conference in Singapore about business and technology, has been postponed to August because of growing concerns about the coronavirus.
Source: EmTech Asia/Twitter
Google News Initiative Global Summit, Google’s annual news conference, was cancelled because of the outbreak.
Source: CBS News
The Trump administration postponed the ASEAN Summit in Las Vegas, which connects the leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian nations.
Shopify cancelled its annual developer conference, Unite, because of the outbreak.
Source: Financial Post
Semi, which is a global organisation that includes companies that are vendors of semiconductor production systems and materials, cancelled its Semicon conventions in Korea and China over concerns about the coronavirus.
Source: EE Times
It’s not just conferences that are getting cancelled and postponed — Tokyo’s cherry-blossom festival was cancelled because of the outbreak …
Source: The Points Guy
… and so was Okinawa’s Azalea Festival.
Source: Okinawa Stripes
Ultra Music Festival, which takes place in July in Miami, was also cancelled over growing concerns about the coronavirus.
Source: Variety
Venice authorities cancelled the last two days of the major Venice Carnival because of the outbreak.
Source: Business Insider
Several St. Patrick’s Day parades across Ireland were cancelled because of the outbreak.
Source: BBC
Several fashion shows for Paris and Milan’s fashion weeks were cancelled, including Giorgio Armani’s.
Source: The Guardian, The Cut, WWD
Shanghai Fashion Week will still go on, but instead of in-person with a live audience, the event will be livestreamed online.
Source: US News
Other sporting events have been affected as well. Formula One’s Chinese Grand Prix has been postponed because of the outbreak.
Source: Business Insider
The LPGA cancelled three tournaments in Asia because of concerns about the coronavirus …
Source: Reuters
… and the PGA Tour Series-China was cancelled.
Source: Reuters
Similarly, the World Athletics Indoor Championships will be postponed until 2021.
Source: Reuters
FIFA postponed the Asia qualifiers for the 2022 World Cup. The matches have not been rescheduled yet.
Source: FIFA
The Dalai Lama has cancelled all public events indefinitely because of the outbreak.
Source: The New York Times
- Read more:
- Coronavirus live updates: More than 100,000 people have been infected and more than 3,400 have died. The US has reported 14 deaths. Here’s everything we know.
- The US has reported 14 coronavirus deaths among more than 240 cases. Here’s what we know about the US patients.
- Twitter and Amazon are among 31 of the largest global companies who have restricted travel or asked their employees to work remotely as a precaution against the novel coronavirus. Here’s the full list.
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