2020 SXSW Cancelled(?)
 

Just heard that the world's largest music-fest was cancelled based on coronavirus fears. Nothing on their website at the moment.

That is correct; it has been cancelled.

350,000 visitors and $300MM economic benefit to Austin kaput. Difficult to say if it was/is necessary.

For my micro view of this issue, I went in a restaurant in Atlanta on Thursday night at 7 pm where I had never, in fifteen years of going there, seen an empty table. The place was somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 full - just stunning. The food was as good as it always was, and easy to get in and out of the parking lot, but at what cost. No-one wants to do something crazy and make matters worse, but the cumulative effect of this on the economy will be felt.

Jim, I totally agree, what a mess!

The Mayor is a walking talking disaster area. He's trying to turn the city into Los Angeles and San Fran. Homeless people from around the state are flooding in because the Mayor and City Council have taken it on themselves to allow camping in public places. Fine dining establishments downtown are suffering because the homeless have become very aggressive. Tents and cardboard boxes are taking over the alleys. Trash and tents under all the freeway overpasses. Now the cancelling of SXSW is going to be rough for all the downtown businesses that really depend on tourist dollars. Music venues, restaurants, Hotels, Uber and Lyft drivers etc etc.

Austin is one of Texas' greatest embarrassments.

The joke around the state is we wish we could somehow cancel Austin, not just SXSW. Maybe move the city to California where it rightfully belongs.

2020 SXSW Cancelled(?)
 

I’m not from Texas, but I love Austin. It’s much cooler that it’s in Texas than in California. It’s not as cool as it was a few decades ago, but it’s still pretty cool.

I don’t know about now, but followed a girl back from Hawaii and lived there for 6/9 months in ‘93, 4401 Speedway - I had a lot of fun in Austin then, and loved 6th street

Hyde Park north campus neighborhood.Really old Austin! I have a couple rental houses there.