7 ms·

Meanwhile, CONEXPOAGG is on with 130,000 attendees: https://twitter.com/LasVegasLocally/status/1237148919898836994 https://twitter.com/LasVegasLocally/status/1

by QUFB 7y ago

Meanwhile, CONEXPOAGG is on with 130,000 attendees: https://twitter.com/LasVegasLocally/status/1237148919898836994 https://twitter.com/LasVegasLocally/status/12371489198988369...

ghaff 7y ago
ADDED: The Houston Rodeo with a couple million attendees is also going ahead. My anecdotal impression is that tech and tech adjacent events are canceling in significantly great numbers than non-tech. Part of the difference is probably that so many tech companies are telling employees not to attend large events, or even events at all, that even if a tech conference organizer wanted to go ahead, they'd lose half their attendees.
- syntheticnature 7y ago
  While not a universal (I see replies to that tweet about CONEXPOAGG that mention folks from Canada), I feel like tech conferences have an increased amount of international attendance -- definitely I expect a greater worldwide contingent at most tech conferences vs. the Houston rodeo. Imagine if this had gotten loose at CES...
  - ghaff 7y ago
    There's probably truth to that. Certainly it was a factor in MWC canceling while there were still other events, including RSA, going forward as planned. (Some companies did pull out of RSA but it didn't reach the critical mass for the organizers to pull the plug on the event.)
- topkai22 7y ago
  I think the amount of international travel is huge part (the Houston rodeo might have 2M+ attendees, but I'll bet 90% of them are from Texas), but so are economics- It wouldn't suprise me if cancelling CONEXPOCONAGG or the Houston Rodeo would bankrupt the sponsoring organizations, whereas google won't even notice cancelling their events.
  - ghaff 7y ago
    >whereas google won't even notice cancelling their events That's something of an overstatement. Companies don't put these things on for fun. But, yeah, they'll manage. And, to a first approximation, all the other companies and individuals who were sponsoring/attending/etc. will manage too and relatively few individuals will be directly and personally out of pocket. That said, there will be startups who were planning launches around the Google events, there will be indirect downstream effects on people who organize events, do professional speaking, etc.
    - wpietri 7y ago
      Google doesn't exactly do it for fun, but I'm sure it isn't a significant source of revenue. Given that most corporate conferences are essentially about marketing, the incentive is to be break-even, or even run at a loss. That's very different than people trying to make a living from an event.
      - topkai22 7y ago
        Yeah, obviously it's not an easy decision, but my definition of "won't even notice" is that it even if it's a $20M write off, it's like 0.06% of their 2019 net income. For a lot of independent events (like SWSX) canceling the event means losing most of their operating budget.
  - departure 7y ago
    SXSW in Austin was recently cancelled and the organization is considering bankruptcy. They laid off 1/3 of their full-time staff due to the cancellation. https://twitter.com/efindell/status/1237156566564048898?s=19 https://twitter.com/efindell/status/1237156566564048898?s=19 https://www.wsj.com/articles/south-by-southwest-hit-hard-by-coronavirus-cancellation-11583711311 https://www.wsj.com/articles/south-by-southwest-hit-hard-by-...
    - jacquesm 7y ago
      They won't be the last. There will be plenty of companies going under due to this.
- arman_ashrafian 7y ago
  Coachella is being delayed till October.
  - tlb 7y ago
    Source? Neither their website nor Twitter says so. EDIT: Confirmed. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/10/arts/music/coronavirus-coachella-postponed.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/10/arts/music/coronavirus-co...
- gravelc 7y ago
  Unbelievable these events are going ahead. A number of travelers returning to Australia from the USA have contracted COVID19, indicating the disease is more widespread than admitted by the government. The Formula 1 Grand Prix is going ahead in Australia this weekend, which is equally poor.
  - dathinab 7y ago
    I always thought the majority of income for F1 is unrelated to the live visitors. and as such it should be fine to do it just without live publicum. ... I wonder if I'm wrong about it or they are just too irresponsible to cancel the parts involving crowdes?
    - deerIRL 7y ago
      Irresponsible mostly. Bahrain has already said it plans to hold their Grand Prix in an empty grandstand. I do think the host tracks would prefer to have a full Grand Stand, due to ticket sales, but I'm not sure how much it would affect F1 as a whole. Sadly, there seems to be a sense of invincibility almost towards the virus in Western Countries until all of a sudden it arrives and you are dealing with hundreds or thousands of cases.
- raverbashing 7y ago
  One non-tech even that was cancelled: Arnold Fitness Expo (Columbus, OH)
allovernow 7y ago
>Take THAT, coronavirus! :P It's really hard at this point not to feel like people deserve what's coming. The vast majority of regular Joes still don't care and think I'm crazy for simply telling them to be responsible and buy some non perishable goods. Meanwhile Mecca is shut down, Italy instituted a Nationwide lockdown overnight, UK hospitals are running out of capacity, China shut down it's entire industry for two months, Independent reports Trump admin may be considering declaring a Nationwide state of emergency...I'm losing track of all the clear, obvious evidence of imminently approaching danger from literally all over the world.
- throwaway55554 7y ago
  > It's really hard at this point not to feel like people deserve what's coming. The vast majority of regular Joes still don't care and think I'm crazy for simply telling them to be responsible and buy some non perishable goods. Because you have a lot of so-called authority figures (in the USofA at least) telling people it's all under control. At what point will the lies become criminal?
  - everybodyknows 7y ago
    Have officials in the US ever been prosecuted for telling voters lies that they want to hear in order to validate their own delusions? We can draw a meandering line from this tweet back through at least 2000, when a US presidential candidate dismissed his opponent's quantitative reasoning about climate change as "fuzzy math". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzzy_math_(politics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzzy_math_(politics)
- theredbox 7y ago
  You are not crazy you are simply overreacting like a typical american.
  - phailhaus 7y ago
    > Meanwhile Mecca is shut down, Italy instituted a Nationwide lockdown overnight, UK hospitals are running out of capacity, China shut down it's entire industry for two months Those countries are not American. They are reacting reasonably to a virus that has 20x the mortality rate of the flu, with no known vaccine.
speedgoose 7y ago
This is the dumbest tweet I read today.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

by QUFB 7y ago

Meanwhile, CONEXPOAGG is on with 130,000 attendees: https://twitter.com/LasVegasLocally/status/1237148919898836994 https://twitter.com/LasVegasLocally/status/12371489198988369...

ghaff 7y ago

ADDED: The Houston Rodeo with a couple million attendees is also going ahead. My anecdotal impression is that tech and tech adjacent events are canceling in significantly great numbers than non-tech. Part of the difference is probably that so many tech companies are telling employees not to attend large events, or even events at all, that even if a tech conference organizer wanted to go ahead, they'd lose half their attendees.

syntheticnature 7y ago
While not a universal (I see replies to that tweet about CONEXPOAGG that mention folks from Canada), I feel like tech conferences have an increased amount of international attendance -- definitely I expect a greater worldwide contingent at most tech conferences vs. the Houston rodeo. Imagine if this had gotten loose at CES...
- ghaff 7y ago
  There's probably truth to that. Certainly it was a factor in MWC canceling while there were still other events, including RSA, going forward as planned. (Some companies did pull out of RSA but it didn't reach the critical mass for the organizers to pull the plug on the event.)
topkai22 7y ago
I think the amount of international travel is huge part (the Houston rodeo might have 2M+ attendees, but I'll bet 90% of them are from Texas), but so are economics- It wouldn't suprise me if cancelling CONEXPOCONAGG or the Houston Rodeo would bankrupt the sponsoring organizations, whereas google won't even notice cancelling their events.
- ghaff 7y ago
  >whereas google won't even notice cancelling their events That's something of an overstatement. Companies don't put these things on for fun. But, yeah, they'll manage. And, to a first approximation, all the other companies and individuals who were sponsoring/attending/etc. will manage too and relatively few individuals will be directly and personally out of pocket. That said, there will be startups who were planning launches around the Google events, there will be indirect downstream effects on people who organize events, do professional speaking, etc.
  - wpietri 7y ago
    Google doesn't exactly do it for fun, but I'm sure it isn't a significant source of revenue. Given that most corporate conferences are essentially about marketing, the incentive is to be break-even, or even run at a loss. That's very different than people trying to make a living from an event.
    - topkai22 7y ago
      Yeah, obviously it's not an easy decision, but my definition of "won't even notice" is that it even if it's a $20M write off, it's like 0.06% of their 2019 net income. For a lot of independent events (like SWSX) canceling the event means losing most of their operating budget.
- departure 7y ago
  SXSW in Austin was recently cancelled and the organization is considering bankruptcy. They laid off 1/3 of their full-time staff due to the cancellation. https://twitter.com/efindell/status/1237156566564048898?s=19 https://twitter.com/efindell/status/1237156566564048898?s=19 https://www.wsj.com/articles/south-by-southwest-hit-hard-by-coronavirus-cancellation-11583711311 https://www.wsj.com/articles/south-by-southwest-hit-hard-by-...
  - jacquesm 7y ago
    They won't be the last. There will be plenty of companies going under due to this.
arman_ashrafian 7y ago
Coachella is being delayed till October.
- tlb 7y ago
  Source? Neither their website nor Twitter says so. EDIT: Confirmed. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/10/arts/music/coronavirus-coachella-postponed.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/10/arts/music/coronavirus-co...
gravelc 7y ago
Unbelievable these events are going ahead. A number of travelers returning to Australia from the USA have contracted COVID19, indicating the disease is more widespread than admitted by the government. The Formula 1 Grand Prix is going ahead in Australia this weekend, which is equally poor.
- dathinab 7y ago
  I always thought the majority of income for F1 is unrelated to the live visitors. and as such it should be fine to do it just without live publicum. ... I wonder if I'm wrong about it or they are just too irresponsible to cancel the parts involving crowdes?
  - deerIRL 7y ago
    Irresponsible mostly. Bahrain has already said it plans to hold their Grand Prix in an empty grandstand. I do think the host tracks would prefer to have a full Grand Stand, due to ticket sales, but I'm not sure how much it would affect F1 as a whole. Sadly, there seems to be a sense of invincibility almost towards the virus in Western Countries until all of a sudden it arrives and you are dealing with hundreds or thousands of cases.
raverbashing 7y ago
One non-tech even that was cancelled: Arnold Fitness Expo (Columbus, OH)

allovernow 7y ago

>Take THAT, coronavirus! :P It's really hard at this point not to feel like people deserve what's coming. The vast majority of regular Joes still don't care and think I'm crazy for simply telling them to be responsible and buy some non perishable goods. Meanwhile Mecca is shut down, Italy instituted a Nationwide lockdown overnight, UK hospitals are running out of capacity, China shut down it's entire industry for two months, Independent reports Trump admin may be considering declaring a Nationwide state of emergency...I'm losing track of all the clear, obvious evidence of imminently approaching danger from literally all over the world.

throwaway55554 7y ago
> It's really hard at this point not to feel like people deserve what's coming. The vast majority of regular Joes still don't care and think I'm crazy for simply telling them to be responsible and buy some non perishable goods. Because you have a lot of so-called authority figures (in the USofA at least) telling people it's all under control. At what point will the lies become criminal?
- everybodyknows 7y ago
  Have officials in the US ever been prosecuted for telling voters lies that they want to hear in order to validate their own delusions? We can draw a meandering line from this tweet back through at least 2000, when a US presidential candidate dismissed his opponent's quantitative reasoning about climate change as "fuzzy math". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzzy_math_(politics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzzy_math_(politics)
theredbox 7y ago
You are not crazy you are simply overreacting like a typical american.
- phailhaus 7y ago
  > Meanwhile Mecca is shut down, Italy instituted a Nationwide lockdown overnight, UK hospitals are running out of capacity, China shut down it's entire industry for two months Those countries are not American. They are reacting reasonably to a virus that has 20x the mortality rate of the flu, with no known vaccine.

speedgoose 7y ago

This is the dumbest tweet I read today.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]