Another major event has been canceled due to the spread of the novel coronavirus. TwitchCon Amsterdam, the European version of the popular annual TwitchCon convention in the US, has been officially shut down. TwitchCon Amsterdam was originally planned to be held in May, but is now canceled with no apparent plans to reschedule. The cancelation is, of course, attributed to the ongoing coronavirus outbreak and Twitch's efforts to protect the health and safety of its employees and potential attendees.
According to Twitch, all attendees and exhibitors that had planned on attending TwitchCon Amsterdam are being contacted regarding refunds. That, at least, Twitch can ensure is taken care of. A lot of travelers probably already had accommodations arranged, so hopefully, hotels and rentals in Amsterdam will be as accomodating at Twitch is being.
As noted, TwitchCon Amsterdam has announced no plans to postpone or reschedule the event. It, for now, is simply not going to happen this year. The bigger TwitchCon event, the US-based convention that occurs in San Diego in September, is still planned to go on like normal, the hope being that, like the flu season, the coronavirus will have run its course by September.
TwitchCon Amsterdam is just one of several conventions canceling their plans this Friday. SXSW, which was scheduled to run between March 13 and March 22 has now canceled its full event. NetherRealm Studios announced today that it had canceled its "Last Chance Qualifier" event for Mortal Kombat 11 and will also not have a live audience for its Final Kombat 2020 event. The Emerald Comic Convention, scheduled for March 12 through 15, was also canceled this morning, though it plans to reschedule for this summer.
Events the world over are starting to take the coronavirus very seriously. For anyone hoping to attend an event in the next several months, it may be worth trying to refund tickets and accommodations just to get ahead of the curve.
TwitchCon Amsterdam would have been the first annual event for Twitch in Europe. Sadly, there seems a genuine possibility that it won't return to the city in the future. Twitch is allowing exhibitors to move their commitments to either TwitchCon in San Diego or to a hypothetical "TwitchCon Europe 2021." This likely implies that Twitch will explore bringing TwitchCon to a different city than Amsterdam. That's certain to be disappointing to local Twitch streamers, but no more than not having a convention at all.
TwitchCon remains scheduled for September 25-27 in the US.