The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the novel coronavirus outbreak a global pandemic in March 2020, and its affects on public health and the global economy are unmistakable.
As of October 2020, data compiled by Johns Hopkins University on COVID-19 cases show over 41,000,000 cases and more than 1,120,000 deaths worldwide. In the US, officials have reported over 8,300,000 cases and over 220,000 deaths from the COVID-19 disease.
In response to the pandemic, governments around the world enacted travel bans, promoted and in some cases required social distancing measures, and passed stimulus packages designed to mitigate the public health and economic fallout from the outbreak. Despite these measures, COVID-19 has had a profoundly negative affect on the global economy and the tech sector, particularly when it comes to industry events. Whether as a result of travel bans, laws banning large gatherings, or an abundance of caution, tech conferences have been canceled, postponed, or converted to virtual events.
The following is a list of tech events that have been called off, pushed back, or changed format as a result of COVID-19.
SEE: 2021 IT budget research report: COVID-19’s impact on projects and priorities (TechRepublic Premium)
2021 Tech conferences calendar
2020 Tech conferences canceled, postponed, or going virtual
- Adobe MAX (Oct. 20-22) – In-person canceled; online-only event
- Adobe Summit (Mar. 29-Apr. 2 in Las Vegas) – In-person canceled; online-only event
- Apple WWDC (June) – In-person canceled; online-only event
- Aruba Networks Atmosphere 2020 (Mar. 23-26) – In-person canceled; online-only event
- Atlassian Summit 2020 (Mar. 31-Apr. 2 in Las Vegas) – In-person canceled; online-only event
- AWS re:Invent (Nov. 30 – Dec. 18) – In-person canceled; online-only event
- BlackBerry Security Summit 2020 (Oct. 6-7) – In-person canceled; online-only event
- Black Hat Asia 2020 (Mar. 31-Apr. 3 in Singapore) – Postponed until Sep. 29-Oct. 2
- CanSecWest (Mar. 18-20 in Vancouver) – Held as scheduled
- Cisco Live (May 31- Jun. 4 in Las Vegas) – In-person canceled; online-only event
- Cisco Live Melbourne (Mar. 3-6 in Melbourne) – Canceled
- Code PaLOUsa 2020 (Aug. 19-21 in Louisville, KY) – In-person canceled; online-only event
- Comic-Con (Jul. 23-26 in San Diego) – Canceled; Rescheduled for Jul. 22-25 2021
- DEF CON China (Apr. 17-19 in Beijing) – Canceled
- Dell World (May 4-7 in Las Vegas) – In-person canceled; online-only event Oct. 21-22
- DocuSign Momentum (Mar. 4 in San Francisco) – In-person canceled; online-only event
- Domopalooza (Mar. 18-19 in Salt Lake City, UT) – In-person canceled; online-only event
- DrupalCon (May 18-22 in in Minneapolis, MN) – In-person canceled; online-only event Jul. 14-17
- DrupalCon Europe (Dec. 8-11) – Online-only event
- E3 (Jun. 9-11 in Las Angeles) – Canceled
- EmTech Asia (Mar. 24-26 in Singapore) – Postponed to Aug. 4-5
- Enterprise Connect 2020 (Mar. 30-Apr. 2 in Orlando) – Postponed to Aug 3-6 in San Francisco
- ESRI Developer Summit (Mar. 10) – In-person canceled; online-only event
- F5 Agility 2020 (Mar. 16-19 in Orlando, FL) – In-person canceled; online-only event
- Facebook F8 (May 6-8 in San Jose, CA) – Canceled
- Facebook Global Marketing Summit (Mar. 9-12 in San Francisco) – Canceled
- Forrester Data Strategy & Insights – North America (Oct. 13-15) – In-person canceled; online-only event
- Future Vision: DTG Summit 2020 (May 6 in London) – In-person canceled; online-only event Oct. 7
- Game Developers Conference (GDC) (Mar. 16-20 in San Francisco) – Postponed to Jul. 19-23, 2021
- Forrester CX Sydney (Apr. 29-30 in Sydney) – In-person canceled; online-only event Apr. 20
- Forrester CX North America (Jun. 16-18 in New York) – In-person canceled; online-only event Jun. 16-18
- Forrester SiriusDecisions Summit (May 3-6 in Austin, TX) – In-person canceled; online-only event May 4
- Gartner CIO Symposium/ITxPo (Oct. 19-22 in Orlando) – In-person canceled; online-only event
- Gartner Data & Analytics Summit (Mar. 9-11 in London – Postponed
- Gartner Data & Analytics Summit (Mar. 23-26 in Grapevine, TX) – Postponed
- Google Cloud Next (Apr. 6-8 in San Francisco) – In-person canceled; online-only event
- Google I/O (May 12-14 in Mountain View, CA) – Canceled
- Google News Initiative Summit (Late Apr. in Sunnyvale, CA) – Canceled
- HPE Discover (Jun. 23-25 in Las Vegas) – In-person canceled; online-only event June 22
- Infor Inforum 2020 (Sep. 14-16 in Las Vegas) – In-person canceled; online-only event
- Ingram Micro Cloud Cloud Summit 2020 (May 12-14 in Miami Beach, FL) – Postponed until early 2021
- IoT World Developer Conference (Apr. 6-9, 2020 in San Jose, CA) – In-person canceled; online-only event Aug. 11-13
- Kaspersky’s Security Analyst Summit (April 6 – 9 in Barcelona) – Postponed until Fall 2020
- Microsoft Build (May 19-21 in Seattle) – In-person canceled; online-only event
- Microsoft Ignite (Sep. 21-25 in New Orleans) – in-person canceled; online-only event Sep.
- Microsoft WSLConf (March 10-11 in Redmond, WA) – In-person canceled; online-only event
- Microsoft MVP Global Summit (Mar. 15-20 in Bellevue & Redmond, WA) – In-person canceled; online-only event
- Mobile World Congress MWC Barcelona (GSMA) (Feb. 24-27 in Barcelona) – Canceled
- MSPWorld (Mar. 15-17 in New Orleans) – In-person canceled; online-only event
- Mobile World Congress MWC Los Angeles (GSMA) (Oct. 28-30 in Los Angeles) – In-person canceled; online-only event
- Mobile World Congress MWC Shanghai (GSMA) (Jun. 30 – Jul. 2 in Shanghai) – Being held as scheduled
- NAB Show – National Association of Broadcasters (Apr. 18-22 in Las Vegas) – Canceled; possible rescheduled for Fall
- Nvidia GTC – GPU Technology Conference (Mar. 22-26 in San Jose, CA) – In-person canceled; online-only event
- O’Reilly Strata Data & AI Conference (Mar. 15-18, San Jose, CA) – Postponed; Merged with Strata Data & AI (Sep. 14–17); online-only
- ODSC East 2020 – Open Data Science Conference (Apr. 13-17 in Boston) – In-person canceled; online-only event Oct. 5-9
- OFC 2020 (Mar. 8-12 in San Diego, CA) – Held as scheduled
- Oktane Live – (Mar. 30-Apr. 2) Online-only event
- Oracle Code One (Sep. 21-24 in Las Vegas) – Postponed until 2021
- Oracle Modern Business Experience (Mar. 23-26 in Chicago) – Postponed until Sep. 21-24 to coincide with OpenWorld
- Oracle OpenWorld (Sep. 21-24 in Las Vegas) – In-person cancelled; online-only
- OSCON (Jul. 13-16 in Portland) – In-person cancelled; online-only
- Paris Blockchain Week Summit (Mar. 31-Apr. 1 in Paris) – Postponed until Dec. 9-10
- Percona Live Open Source Database Conference (May 18-20 in Austin, TX) – In-person canceled, online-only event Oct. 20-21
- Pwn2Own (March 12 in Vancouver) – In-person canceled, online-only event
- Qualtrics X4 Summit (Mar. 10-13 in Salt Lake City, UT) – Postponed to early Fall 2020
- Recode Code Conference 2020 (May 26-28 in Beverly Hills, CA) – Rescheduled; Sep. 8-10
- Red Hat Summit 2020 (Apr. 27-29 in San Francisco) – In-person canceled; online-only event
- RSA Conference (Feb. 24-28 in San Francisco) – Held as planned (IBM, AT&T, Verizon, and other vendors withdrew)
- SaaS Connect – Cloud Software Association (Apr. 15-16 in San Francisco) – Postponed until Oct. 5-6
- SaaStr Annual 2020 – (Mar. 10-12 in San Jose, CA) – Canceled; rescheduled Sep. 2020, SF Bay Area
- Salesforce Dreamforce (Nov. 9-12 in San Francisco) – In-person canceled; online-only event in Nov. and Dec.
- Salesforce Tableau Conference – In-person canceled; online-only event
- Salesforce TrailheaDX (Jun. 9-10 in San Francisco) – In-person canceled; online-only event
- Salesforce TrailheaDX India – In-person canceled; online-only event
- Salesforce World Tour Sydney (Mar. 4 in Sydney) – In-person canceled; online-only event
- SAP Ariba LIVE (Mar. 16-18 in Las Vegas) – Canceled
- SAP Concur Fusion (Mar. 9-12 in Orlando) – In-person canceled; online-only event
- SAP NOW (Mar.) – Canceled
- SAP SAPPHIRE NOW (May 12-14 in Orlando) – In-person canceled; online-only event
- SAS Global Forum (Mar. 29-Apr. 1 in Washington, DC) – In-person canceled; online-only event Nov. 10
- Slack Frontiers (Oct. 7-8) – In-person canceled; online-only event
- Shopify Unite 2020 developers conference (May 6-8 in Toronto) – In-person canceled; online-only event
- SXSW (Mar. 12-22 in Austin, Texas) – Canceled
- TNW Conference (Jun, 18-19 in Amsterdam) – Postponed until Oct. 1-2
- VMworld (Aug. 31-Sep. 3 in San Francisco) – In-person canceled; online-only event
- Zoomtopia (Oct. 14-15) – In-person canceled; online-only event
Note: We will do our best to update this list as news of conference cancellations in released through out the rest of 2020 and into 2021.
O’Reilly Media closes in-person events division amid coronavirus outbreak
Beyond the temporary conference rescheduling and virtual shifts, COVID-19 has also had a more permanent affect on tech events. On March 24, 2020, Laura Baldwin, President of O’Reilly Media, announced that the company was shuttering its in-person events division on going completely virtual for future events. In a statement posted on the company’s website, Baldwin explained the decision:
“Today, we’re sharing the news that we’ve made the very difficult decision to cancel all future O’Reilly in-person conferences and close down this portion of our business. Without understanding when this global health emergency may come to an end, we can’t plan for or execute on a business that will be forever changed as a result of this crisis. With large technology vendors moving their events completely on-line, we believe the stage is set for a new normal moving forward when it comes to in-person events.”
Updated Oct, 22, 2020 EST: Updated coronavirus and conference information, adding 2021 events calendar. Removed outdated information. Previous updates include; employee travel restrictions, conference cancellations, school closings, U.S. lawmakers going into isolation, U.S. travel restrictions, and U.S. aid legislation.
