[fortran77]

These get canceled because employers don't want the liability if they require attendance at a conference and a person gets very ill.

The majority of people at SXSW are there for recreational/personal reasons and are not directed to go there from an employer.

[dvtrn]

Except, you know...for the people working local venues and establishments during SXSW, right?

[fortran77]

And these people will lose big-time if it gets canceled. What's your point?

[michaelt]

I think it's that employees who get flown to $1000-a-ticket conferences by their employers get treated better by their employers than food service workers.

[dvtrn]

I wholly understand that, I'm speaking directly to the employees who live and work in Austin and very likely wont have their shifts cancelled like those $1000-ticket holders would (speaking from experience).

Sorry, somehow I keep forgetting that trying to bring up the fact that there are classes of people not making software engineer money that would be just as affected by some of the hypotheticals on HN is a no-no.

[ghaff]

They don’t really enter into the calculus for running or not running these events but there are a huge number of local people who provide food/drink, security, audio, janitorial, registration, etc. for these events who lose a week of work when events are canceled—probably with no compensation.

[dvtrn]

They don’t really enter into the calculus for running or not running these events

I would beg to differ as many "official" SXSW events rely on local venues to host them, Austin Texas is not a large city, geographically. It's just very dense. There is not a surplus of concert and event space outside of Auditorium Shores and the Long Center for keynotes and expos.

Otherwise, the festival HEAVILY relies on local establishments and venues in order to even exist; especially for SXSW Music. Again, speaking from direct experience having worked as a crew lead at sxsw for 12 years, local venues are critical to the success of this festival. And that's where many of these people work. Their availability and their health absolutely factors in, or at least it should.

The workforce behind this festival extends from stage and production crews to bartenders and hosts to unpaid volunteers who live in Austin and simply want to be a part of the festivities (since volunteering qualifies you for free access to certain events, depending on your role) and whose sole job is interacting with festival goers providing direction or interacting directly with people, handling brochures, exchanging money at registers or checking badges.

Downplaying the impact to the local community and the local workers who make the festival happen behind the scenes isn't fair.

[ghaff]

I think you’re violently agreeing with me. I meant that, even SXSW aside, the decisions being made to cancel or not cancel tech events is almost certainly not taking the local impact into account.

[SilasX]

lol yeah I have a hard time imagining food service's actual cost (not what the hotel bills, but what they actually pay the workers and managers of that part) as being more than a rounding error, and still "sorry workers, can't do anything for you".