I live in Austin where the SXSW conference next week was canceled a couple of days ago. The organizers were set to stay the course until it rather suddenly became clear that going forward was likely a bad idea. There was pressure from city and county government to cancel, but it had received cancellations from more than a few organizations over the course of a couple of days.
I think it is quite likely that Sage will cancel Summit. I have purchased the tickets, and it will be interesting to see if Sage refunds in this case. I reserved hotel but that can be canceled. I haven't yet booked flights, but when I do I'll try to use an airline (like Southwest) that lets you cancel without penalty, keeping the amount paid as a store credit for later.
The way the math works on a disease like this (with long incubation and many showing little or no symptoms) like this is that reported cases will probably increase dramatically in the next couple of weeks, and deaths will track at ~1% of those. Not to be dramatic, but the CDC's best-case scenario is 20% infected, or 60 MM Americans. That translates to 600k deaths. A more likely scenario is twice that.
So the panic is just beginning. I don't see how Sage cannot cancel in that mailstrom.
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Jerry Norman
President, 90 Minds
Smartbridge Partners
512.419.1444 x112
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