The ongoing Coronavirus outbreak has led to the cancellation of the SXSW festival/conference but the organizers have announced that ticket-holders will not be receiving any refunds.
Officials based in Austin, Texas decided to cancel the event because of concerns about transmission of Covid-19 and have said that while they are not offering refunds they will look at other methods of reimbursement.
SXSW bosses are quick to point out that the Terms and Conditions state that tickets are not refundable, 'under any circumstances'. and that the virus could be considered an Act of God, something that is not covered by their reimbursement policy.
The policy also excludes reimbursement on the grounds of illness, terrorism, losing employment or accidental duplicate purchases.
However, SXSW is looking at other ways that ticket holders can receive some kind of recompense by allowing ticket buyers to use their purchase to attend future conferences.
Although not perfect, it does mean that in the long term the conference attendees will be able to make use of their tickets at SXSW up to and including 2023.
SXSW brings huge amounts of revenue to the local economy which is set to suffer a huge blow as a result of the cancellation. The event is the single most profitable event held in Austin and brought in around $355.9 million in 2019.