Another big festival has been canceled over Coronavirus fears — South by Southwest in Austin, Texas.

The annual tech, film and music gathering was all systems go as late as Wednesday, but major firms such as Netflix and Twitter began pulling out. They were followed by numerous artists, including Ozzy Osbourne and Nine Inch Nails.

Austin mayor Steve Adler declared a state of “local disater” in the city on Friday, effectively taking the decision about the festival out of the organizers hands. Adler said the decision was made after consultations with public health officials in the past 24 hours. Adler added, “There is no emergency in our city today other than the exigency that we need to plan and be prepared, and that’s what this city is doing now.” (Some local media have speculated that declaring a disaster in the city makes it possible for organizers to file insurance claims to recoup money.)

The event was expected to draw more than 400,000 visitors this month and generate more than $350 million in revenue. Organizers say they’re “exploring options to reschedule the event and are working to provide a virtual SXSW online experience as soon as possible for 2020 participants.”

The decision to cancel the event less than a week before it was supposed to start has wide-reaching ramifications:

• There were hundreds of musicians flying in from overseas for the event, and now they have to attempt to recoup their money.
• The number of acts that base tours around the festival now have to figure out what to do with those empty days.
• All the venues that had been reserved for official showcases now have multiple empty nights.
• There are also hundreds of non-official SXSW events that place around the festival, and it’s not clear yet what might happen with those shows. (Waterloo Records, the leading music store in Austin, announced that they are cancelling all their day parties)
• There are hundreds of people that work in Austin who plan on income from those two weeks to last them months that will be scrambling to pay bills.
• Texas Monthly projects that many local bars and restaurants will close unexpectedly because they won’t have that revenue coming in and it will severely impact budgets for 2020.
• Music industry people are already wondering if this cancellation ups the chances that the next big festival on the calendar, Coachella, might not happen in mid-April.