Conferences postponed or canceled due to COVID-19
Dozens of conferences around the world have been canceled due to the coronavirus. It’s hard to imagine the amount of stress and frustration that event organizers, vendors, and participants must have felt. The financial implications of a long-planned event getting canceled are many.
While some conferences were completely canceled, others postponed, and still others went remote.
Canceled and postponed conferences in the UK & Ireland
FutureFest
Originally slated for March 20, the FutureFest has been postponed. The visionary event has not yet released information on the updated schedule.
Game Developers Conference
London’s Game Developers Conference, one of the gaming industry’s largest events, has been postponed. Before the cancellation, high profile participants including Elecontronic Arts, Microsoft, and Facebook had pulled out. The conference would have taken place March 16 - 20, and is now being scheduled for a still unannounced date in the summer.
London Book Fair
The London Book Fair, which 25,000 publishers, authors, and agents had planned to attend has been canceled due to the coronavirus. The event had been scheduled for March 10 to 12.
Dublin Tech Summit
Scheduled to take place April 22 and 23, Dublin Tech Summit has now been rescheduled for September 9 and 10.
FutureScope
Another large innovation event in Ireland, FutureScope, which is a one-day event that would have taken place on April 1, is being postponed until the fourth quarter of the year. An exact date hasn’t been announced yet.
SaaStock Dublin
Unlike its North American event, Saastock Dublin is due to take place on October 12-14, and still appears to be going ahead. Check their COVID-19 page for updates.
Canceled and postponed conferences in the U.S.
O'Rielly Strata Data & AI
Due to be held San Jose on March 15–18, the event will be merged with Strata NY in September. Organizers have also decided to cancel their London event also.
Domopalooza
Scheduled for March 18 - 19 in Salt Lake City, Utah, Domopalooza, a tech conference held by analytics firm Domo, was instead moved online. Content is now available on demand.
Adobe Summit
Originally due to take place from March 29 to April 1st, the event is now fully digital. It will take place online on March 31st. more information available on the Adobe site.
SaaStr
SaaStr, one of the world’s largest SaaS conferences, was scheduled to take place from March 10 - 12, 2020. After canceling due to the coronavirus, the conference has been merged with an already scheduled event in September of 2020, and all attendees will receive a ticket to that event.
Facebook Global Marketing Summit
Due to coronavirus concerns, Facebook canceled their March global marketing conference in San Francisco shortly after the announcement of the cancellation of Mobile World Congress.
Amazon Web Services Summit
Amazon Web Services Summit was supposed to take place on April 14, 2020 in San Francisco. Instead, the company will hold a digital event. Similar events in Brussels and Singapore will likely be canceled.
Zendesk Relate
Zendesk’s annual conference Relate was slated to take place in Miami in early March, but canceled to keep event goers safe. They decided to launch Zendesk Relater, a global online event, which begins March 24.
HIMSS 2020 Global Health Conference
For the first time in its long history of 58 years, the HIMSS 2020 Global Health Conference was forced to cancel. The event would have taken place in Las Vegas on March 11. Registered attendees now have access to the digital version of the event this year as well as the live event in 2021.
Y Combinator Demo Day
Demo Day, Y Combinator’s twice-annual pitch fest (a Silicon Valley “ritual”) was moved online, and took place on March 16.
Shoptalk
The 8,000-person retail industry event Shoptalk, slated to talk place in Las Vegas from March 22 - 25, has been moved to September 14 - 17. Vendors include Shopify and Amazon.
SAP Ariba Live
SAP’s Ariba Live Conference was scheduled to take place in Las Vegas from March 16 to 18, and instead moved to an online live streaming event, which occurred on March 18.
Google Cloud Next
Google’s digital event in San Francisco, Cloud Next, has been postponed due to the coronavirus. Google originally announced that they would instead host a virtual event instead, but then decided to postpone the online event as well. Exact dates for their new plans have not yet been announced.
Adobe Summit
The Adobe Summit, which was scheduled for March 29 - April 2 in Las Vegas, would have brought in 22,000 attendees. The event will now take place online instead.
IBM Think Conference
IBM’s annual Think Conference, which was scheduled for May 5 - 7 in San Francisco and would have had 30,000 attendees, has been moved online.
Oracle Modern Business Experience
The San Francisco-based Oracle Modern Business Experience had previously been moved to an online event taking place March 24 to protect the health of attendees, but now the online event has been canceled as well, to protect the health of keynote speakers.
Gartner Data & Analytics Summit
Gartner Data & Analytics Summit is now rescheduled to take place on September 21 - 24, in Grapevine Texas. More info available on their FAQ page.
TPM Conference 20 longbeach
The TPM Conference was slated to take place in Long Beach, California from March 1 - 4. After canceling, the conference is giving refunds to attendees and is focusing their efforts on a 2021 live event.
SaaStock North America
Due to take place in San Francisco, SaaStock North America is postponed to June 2021. Exact dates to follow, stay up to date by checking their COVID-19 page.
Canceled and postponed conferences in Germany
ITB Berlin
One of the travel industry’s largest annual events, ITB Berlin, which was scheduled for March 4 - 8, has been cancelled. The event would have brought 10,000 exhibitors from over 180 countries. The event hasn’t been canceled in its 54 year history, and the event organizers are focused on planning for 2021 instead of an online event.
Internet World Expo
Originally scheduled for March 10 - 11, the Internet World Expo in Munich has been postponed. The digital experience event has not yet announced its plans for the new schedule.
OMR 2020
Due to take place May 12-13, the marketing event has been canceled. The organization has made a fact sheet for attendees.
Canceled and postponed in Spain
Mobile World Congress
Scheduled to take place in Barcelona, the Mobile World Congress is the world’s biggest mobile tech and innovation conference. Around 100,000 attendees come each year. Previous to the cancellation, dozens of companies had already pulled out of the conference due to safety concerns.
SIMAEXPO
Madrid’s real estate industry conference SIMAEXPO, has been moved from May 7 - 10 to November 11 - 13 in light of the coronavirus spread.
EU Startup Summit
Scheduled to take place in Barcelona on May 28-29, the event has been postponed until April 29-30, 2021. More info here.
Status of conferences in France
Paris Blockchain Week Summit
Now scheduled for December 9 to 10, 2020, the Paris Blockchain Week Summit was originally going to take place in July. The event brings in blockchain industry leads, journalists, and innovators.
Livre Paris Book Fair
The Livre Paris Book Fair, one of the publishing industry’s largest events, was scheduled to take place March 20 - 23 and is attended by trade publishers, authors, and readers. With the fair now canceled, event organizers are focused on planning for the 2021 event.
Saastr Europa
The largest event for SaaaS executives, much like its American counterpart, has been postponed. The Saastr Europa team will likely announce new dates in the upcoming weeks, keep track here.
Other conferences affected by COVID-19
Shopify Unite
On February 28, Shopify made the tough decision to cancel their annual developer conference Unite, which would have taken place May 6 - 8 in Toronto. The company was going to host a virtual event instead, but they ultimately cancelled that as well, so they could focus on the health of their employees and needs of their merchants.
Collision Conference
The Collision Conference in Toronto that was scheduled for June 22 - 25 was cancelled on March 7 due to the coronavirus. The 30,000-attendee technology event will instead take place online.
TNW Conference
The Next Web’s Annual TNW Conference in Amsterdam has been moved from June 18 and 19 to October 1 and 2, 2020 in the hopes that virus spread and travel restrictions have eased by then.
Cisco Live Melbourne
Originally set to take place from March 3 - 6, Cisco Live Melbourne has been canceled. A free online event is now scheduled for April 1 - 2.
