andy Langer had a very thoughtful and complete coverage of the whole topic of canceling sxsw this year. here is an analysis of the subject from every angle. Andy Langer
8 hrs ·
A LONG SERIES OF THOUGHTS RE: SXSW, COVID-19 AND THE POTENTIAL FOR DISRUPTION:
I’m not an expert in Epidemiology or Infectiology and amateur internet infectious disease specialists are doing none of us any favors. For better or worse, I am a SXSW expert and my thinking about the viability of SXSW 2020 has shifted fairly dramatically in the last 24-48 hours. Last week, I told anyone that asked that SXSW was wholly unlikely to budge in any significant way and most likely to “proceed as planned” while following Austin Public Health’s/World Health Organization recommendations and by periodically updating its safety resource pages for attendees. Today, I believe that’s less likely than it was- not because of a viral Change.org petition or because there will necessarily be enough cancellations to render it entirely unsustainable, but perhaps because the logistics and optics of 10-day festival hosting thousands from all corners of the earth partying it up – even if guided by an abundance of caution- puts too many entities at risk- not just by way of public health, but in a potentially legally liable/ uninsurable way and places them potentially sideways with the almighty court of public opinion. Fear is contagious and it snowballs quickly into an icy wall of pile-on backlash. This is neither the time for Doritos or White Claw jokes or to call for its cancellation because SXSW doesn’t suit your needs anymore (“It’s too corporate!” “It started off as thing for locals!”, “I played too many shows for free!”, “I couldn’t get in to see Drake!,” weh weh weh.)
That said, as a practical matter, Costco-preppers aside, people in Austin and most other major cities across America aren’t changing their day-to-day lives much at all right now. This could change and this is a mass gathering with a large global constituency, but how different is the typical SXSW experience from daily life? People who consider themselves most at risk or who can’t travel to SXSW because of travel restrictions or new ass-covering company policies/safety procedures, simply won’t come. Then again, Las Vegas – the crown jewel of the convention business- is seeing cancellations- conferences planned for March by the White House and Google have been scrapped. Also worth noting: it’s impossible to know how many of the cancel-SXSW petitioners live here and/or would’ve been involved in any way with SXSW, or understand the complexities of the decision and its consequences.
At this point, it’s probably just on the cusp of too soon for anybody to making a call one way or another- although canceling sooner than later could theoretically mitigate some of the economic impact. And this morning’s announcement that Hillary Clinton will headline a day-long subset of political programming appears to be SXSW doubling down. But in a general sense, here’s what’s working against SXSW- a lot of its attendee base. The Venn Diagram of SXSW badegholders and people most likely to be both educated and/or afraid of the implications of an international mass gathering in uncertain times is a flat circle. A subset of that group is also naturally turned off by huge corporations (which they see SXSW Inc. and its sponsors as) and will pressure/shame SXSW into putting public safety ahead of economics and what they perceive as “greed”- even if those characterizations and the actual decision process are not nearly as black and white in reality. And yet, at the end of the day, this is so much bigger than SXSW Inc.- SXSW is its own giant ecosystem, a lot of which we’ve seen across SXSW’s wide-swinging ebbs and flows is often bigger than and out of the reach of SXSW Inc. itself. For starters, Impact News is reporting it’s not SXSW, but “City/county health officials have authority to make the final call.” That call will obviously and rightfully be focused wholly on public health considerations, but its ramifications is multifold: it stands to adversely impact city and state taxes, Austin’s convention ecosystem, the hotel industry, our local tech and arts community, Austin non-profits that profit and piggy back on SXSW events, our culinary scene and the multitude (thousands?) of ancillary Austin businesses that live rent check to rent check and count on the SXSW bump to carry them through. Yet, as devastating as that trickle-down might be, far more actually devastating is Austin (or Texas) as a COVID-19 hotspot: for the obvious and tragic public health implications and because the quarantines, work/school closures, shortages/panic etc could have longer/larger economic impact.
Here’s the three options for how this all plays out:
BUSINESS AS USUAL: As the hours/days tick by, this increasingly seems like the least likely option. Again, this isn’t about the Change,org petition. It’s more about liability and optics. The information we have (or just as importantly don’t have) about overall threat level for community spread, the # of cases and the spread patterns in the US are super-fluid. And I’m also not a lawyer, but it seems like we have enough scientifically grounded and publicly available information about the potential risks that if the SXSW went on “as planned” and the worst happened, there would be a flurry of litigation- aimed not just at SXSW Inc., but at the city and state, sponsors hosting activations and maybe even individual businesses that were perceived to be negligent in mitigating the risk.
Also against the business as usual model: while an official statement form SXSW Inc. last week said cancellations were on par with previous years, that’s unlikely to hold. Friday evening, I got an email from a major record label group (Concord) canceling their annual happy hour party (scheduled for 3/18) because the company has already “restricted the travel of its employees domestically and abroad.” Meanwhile, Facebook has already canceled its annual developer conference, due to coronavirus concerns, which was scheduled to take place on May 5th and May 6t. At SXSW, Facebook is set to host a week-long event at the old Copper Tank. What’s the likelihood that happens when they’ve already canceled their May conference and they’re perceived to be hosting a party in Austin while their employees in Silicon Valley are battling with what to do about their own safety in California? Both Amazon and Twitter have also reportedly suspended all "non-critical" business travel due to coronavirus- leading to the cancellation of a SXSW interactive conversation with founder Jack Dorsey.
And again, the optics of a “business as usual” SXSW are terrible and don’t underestimate the value of optics. No matter how transparent SXSW Inc. were to be about the decision-making that went into moving forward as-is, it’s hard to imagine that being enough to bat back the backlash. When Facebook canceled its event they said they did so “in order to prioritize the health and safety of our developer partners, employees and everyone who helps put F8 on.” Fair or not, whether actual science backs the conclusion or not, we’re probably already at a point where “business as usual” will be read optically as they (SXSW/city/state) chose to prioritize profits/economic viability over health and safety.
A SIGNIFICANTLY SCALED-BACK SXSW (VOLUNTARY OR OTHERWISE): This seems like the most likely scenario. Cutting the # of days SXSW stretches across, offering full refunds and/or helping cover costs of sponsors/venues/planners that choose not to participate are probably options on the table. There’s also probably ways that a lot of SXSW programming could be live-streamed in front of small audiences or no audiences at all. The problem with a scaled-back SXSW is that it creates too many perceived bad guys- the court of public opinion will weigh in on both those entities that cancel and those that don’t. While SXSW would be fully opt-in on every level in this scenario, it’s not clear if that’s sustainable: would as smaller SXSW actually decrease public safety risks or lessen the impact on already-frantically overworked public health professionals? Would SXSW be even less safe if the only participants were people less likely to be concerned about the potential risk? And again, as a practical consideration given the number of flights, hotel rooms, venue rentals etc. at play, wouldn’t canceling outright with as much warning as possible mitigate some of those losses more than a play-it-by-ear opt-in scaled-back approach. RE: SXSW music, imagine the impact on the venues of a rash of party cancellations: take away high rental fees and big bar guaranteed tabs and you’ve taken away the tide that lifts the boats for a fragile set of year-round music clubs. Maybe they have deposits for those events? But would they see anything near what they would’ve if SXSW is opt-in-or cancelled? Not likely. If a lot of the thinking driving these decisions seems too cold, too calculated, too economically driven, it might be because they are and it’s certainly how they’ll be perceived down the line if the worst (more spread directly traced to SXSW) were to happen.
SXSW IS CANCELLED: Imagine that? The only real winner would be the economic impact firms that would make a fortune surveying the fallout and issuing white papers for years to come. Or would the big winner be Austin’s public safety, the folks that chose to prioritize it (SXSW Inc, the city and the county) and the credit they’d get for acting with an abundance of caution? Then again, SXSW is too big a beast with too many moving parts to turn on a dime: people would still honor travel commitments they can’t get out of or refunded, bands would like still want to play because of tour routing and some not-so-small element of pop-up salvage-what-you-can unofficial festival would pop up in it’s place, only without direct lines of communication to the city/country and the safeguards/alert-system you’d expect from the real SXSW Inc. What if canceling SXSW for safety yields a less safe, less organized not-SXSW?
To cancel SXSW, it would seem SXSW need a consensus of the nation’s best infectious disease experts to lay out in laypeople’s terms the what-ifs. The optics of caution and the goodwill SXSW would engender for a buoyant/bountiful 2021 return are probably less measurable than the cold hard losses, but probably no less valuable for SXSW and its ecosystem’s continued survival. But again, you’re probably looking at local businesses closing, workforce layoffs and the serious impact of a lack of seasonal lift for everybody from rideshare drivers to service industry professionals, from hotel doormen to coffee shop baristas. But the question isn’t so much what if the virus’ spread within Austin was inevitable anyway and we canceled SXSW, but what if it’s not and we didn’t?
This much is clear: it's infinitely easier to jump on an internet bandwagon and sign a petition than to really process and weigh the risks and ramifications for any of the three options. Also clear: the petition, the press, and the optics of any of these three decisions can’t be factors in deciding whether to choose what’s behind doors A, B or C. Faith in giant corporate entities and city/state governments to act responsibly is at an all-time low. But this is the time for faith; we’ve got to believe, and have no proof otherwise, that SXSW Inc, the city and the county’s elected officials and paid staff are in high-level crisis-management war-room-style consultations with the proper public health experts, weighing their advice and attempting to find the most responsible decision. That the whole situation is so fluid on a scientific and geographical scale doesn’t help. But because of the impact of any of these three decisions, embracing the one SXSW and the city/county come too- while of course doing what’s right by you as an individual- is going to be important. You can believe both that COVID-19 is real and stands to be real dangerous and that SXSW is a $335-million ecosystem too much of Austin has a stake in to casually dismiss. What’s going to happen is going to happen. How we react to that is all we control. But for the first time in forever, nobody is headed into this SXSW season lightly or without a nervous heart.
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Originally Posted by RamTheJam
Thanks staff! 
