One of the world’s most famous annual music festivals has been cancelled amid coronavirus fears. South By Southwest was cancelled a week before the nine-day music and film extravaganza was due to kick off in Austin, Texas next Friday.
The festival – commonly known as SXSW – was expected to welcome more than 500,000 visitors from more than 1000 countries, sparking fears it may exacerbate the rapidly spreading virus.
A Change.org petition called for the end for this year’s event and attracted more than 55,000 signatures as of Friday afternoon.
The petition’s organizer, Shayla Lee, wrote: ‘I’m concerned about the hundreds of thousands of people who will be traveling to Austin, Texas in March for the SXSW festival.
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