Dozens of major conferences, concerts, gatherings or other events have now been limited, postponed or outright canceled in the wake of mounting fears of the spread of the novel coronavirus.
Those cancellations have spread far and wide, including everything from the City of Austin’s cancellation of South by Southwest last week to the announcement yesterday that Coachella — long a staple of the music festival circuit — would be postponed until October.
It comes as cases of the coronavirus have steadily ticked up across the United States, with nearly 1,000 confirmed cases across 37 states and Washington, D.C. as of Tuesday. That includes Nevada, which confirmed its first so-called “presumptive positive” case of the disease late last week.
The most severe outbreaks have so-far been limited to Washington State, with other hot spots in California and New York. But several high-profile cases of coronaviruses linked to major conferences — including the self-isolation of a handful Republican congressmen in the wake of a confirmed case of the virus at the major CPAC convention near the nation’s capital — have increased public scrutiny of such large-scale events.
No such outbreaks have yet affected the many convention halls of the Las Vegas Strip, but those spaces have nevertheless been hit quickly by a flurry of cancellations.
Such cancellations are widely expected to trigger ripples across the state’s service industry, though little concrete data on the scope of the issue is available; the wave of cancellations effectively began just last week, and residual effects on flights and other travel to Las Vegas may take several days or weeks to become clear.
Below is a listing of what’s been canceled, what’s still being planned and what remains in-between. Entries will be updated as new information becomes available.
What’s been canceled, closed or postponed
MGM Resorts Buffets – Temporarily closed
- MGM Resorts International announced Tuesday that it would temporarily close its Las Vegas buffets beginning Sunday, March 14. In a statement, the company said it would evaluate reopening those buffets on a weekly basis. The move is the first such closure initiated by a major casino operator and comes in the wake of sharp drops in the stock prices for the gaming giants of the Las Vegas Strip.
Adobe Summit – Canceled; Moved online
- A 20,000 person conference scheduled to take place at the Sands Convention Center at the end of the month, the Adobe Summit, has now been moved to an online-only affair. Announced early last week, Adobe was one of the first companies to pre-emptively back out of a major conference in anticipation of a worsening spread of the coronavirus.
Google Internal Conference – Canceled; Moved online
- Google joined several other tech giants in canceling in-person events when they axed plans for a major internal marketing conference set for this month, in addition to canceling its hallmark bay-area event, I/O 2020. Like other tech companies, Google has largely replaced such events with online-based options, instead.
Atlassian Summit – Canceled; Moved online
- Like Google, software developer Atlassian canceled in-person events for its Atlassian Summit at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center, scheduled for early April. Instead, the company will move planned seminars to online sessions.
Shoptalk – Postponed
- More than 8,000 were scheduled to attend the Shoptalk retailer conference later this month at Mandalay Bay. Organizers have now kicked the date back to September, though they still plan on using event space at Mandalay Bay.
NXT Global Summit – Canceled
- The first-ever NXT Global summit, billed as a “collection of conferences, festivals, trade shows and engaging events” at the Las Vegas Convention Center, was canceled last week, months away from the planned conference date in July. Organizers said in a statement that they’ve shifted focus toward a new event in 2021.
SAP Ariba Live – Canceled; Moved online
- Organizers for a conference from the software company SAP Ariba scheduled for the end of this week announced they would move presentations online and cancel in-person convention plans at the Wynn. SAP Ariba’s 2019 conference had drawn roughly 2,500 attendees.
SuiteWorld20 – Postponed
- Software company Oracle Netsuite announced it would kick back the date for its SuiteWorld20 conference from April 20 to August 10. In an announcement on the SuiteWorld website, organizers said the event will still be held at the Las Vegas Sands and Venetian convention centers.
ISC West – Postponed
- Organizers of ISC West 2020, a security industry trade show, have pushed conference dates from March 17 back to July, though they expect to remain at the Las Vegas Sands Convention Center. In a statement published on the ISC Website, organizers said new dates will be announced soon.
IWCE 2020 – Postponed
- No new dates have been announced for the International Wireless Communications Expo, which was slated to begin on March 30 at the Las Vegas Convention Center. In a statement released online, organizers said the decision was made in light of increasing corporate travel restrictions.
Las Vegas Polo Classic – Postponed
- Originally scheduled for April 18, the Lamborghini Las Vegas Polo Classic has been postponed until July 16 “due to coronavirus concerns,” according to a statement released on the organization’s website.
Channel Partners Conference – Postponed
- The Channel Partners Conference and Expo was canceled just three days before the planned March 9 start date at the Sands Expo Convention Center, with organizers promising to announce a new date in the near future. For now, the Channel Partners Expo reads: TBD-2020.
What’s still scheduled, on-track or remaining open
ConExpo-Con/Agg 2020
- A major construction expo with nearly 130,000 registered attendees, ConExpo-Con organizers announced in a statement last week that exhibitors pulling out of the convention represented less than 2 percent of the 2.7 million sq. ft. of floor space being used. That nearly included Swedish Automaker Volvo, whose construction vehicle arm re-committed to the show Friday after previously backing out.
Trump Speech at the Republican Jewish Coalition
- President Donald Trump is still scheduled to speak at a gathering of the Republican Jewish Coalition this Saturday at the Venetian, a hotel owned by Republican mega-donor Sheldon Adelson.
2020 NFL Draft
- Scheduled for late April, the 2020 draft in Las Vegas “remain in place,” the NFL said Tuesday, though the league remains in contact with world health authorities and the Duke Infection Control Outreach Network. One of the biggest in-person events put on by the NFL every year, the 2019 Draft in Nashville, Tennessee drew a record 600,000 attendees. The 2020 festivities — which include plans for draft prospects to be ferried by boat to a floating stage at the Bellagio fountains — had drawn renewed buzz ahead of a move by the Raiders football team to Las Vegas later this year.
World Series of Poker
- Though it is not set to kick off until late May, organizers for the World Series of Poker told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that they have no plans to cancel the event at the Rio.
National Association of Broadcasters Show
- A massive conference expected to draw more than 100,000, the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Show is moving forward with plans for its expo in mid April. In a statement released Tuesday, organizers said they were continuing to monitor the situation in consultation with Nevada health care officials. Still, at least one exhibitor, AJA Video Systems, announced it was pulling out of the NAB convention.
Vegas Golden Knights
K-12 Schools and Universities
- While public schools across the state remain open and operating as normal, the Clark County School District announced that it would halt all school-sanctioned out-of-state travel.
- Though officials at UNLV and UNR have not yet moved to cancel in-person classes like some other U.S. colleges, UNR has suspended travel-abroad programs to coronavirus hot-spots such as Italy and South Korea, and advised event organizers on campus to “make their own decision regarding postponement or cancellation.”
