SXSW sued over no-refund policy after 2020 event was cancelled due to coronavirus

Last month, SXSW was forced to cancel this year's event due to the spread of COVID-19.

The cancellation resulted in the festival losing a third of their full time workforce, and organisers decided to stick to their no-refund policy following the cancellation.

Although many people have lost money buying non-refundable tickets, SXSW did offer ticketholders the option of deferring their 2020 tickets to 2021, 2022, or 2023.

Despite trying to stay afloat financially, two women who spent upwards of $1000 on their 2020 tickets have filed a class action lawsuit against SXSW over their no-refund policy. Metro reports that the women, named Maria Bromley and Kleber Pauta, filed the lawsuit last Friday (24 April) on behalf of "hundreds of thousands of people" who have been affected by the cancellation.

Bromley and Pauta are suing the festival for breach of contract and unjust enrichment "in order to recover monies paid for a festival that never occurred".

A SXSW spokesperson responded to the lawsuit via Billboard, "When Mayor Steve Adler issued an order on March 6, 2020, prohibiting SXSW from holding the 2020 event due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we understood and agreed with his tough call. The pandemic and the cancellation have caused a tremendous loss to our business, our staff, the City, and its citizens. We are still picking up the pieces after spending a year to program what would have been a remarkable event that required significant time, energy, and resources to produce."

They add, "Due to the unique nature of SXSW’s business, where we are reliant on one annual event, we incurred extensive amounts of non-recoupable costs well in advance of March. These expenditures, and the loss of expected revenue, have resulted in a situation where we do not have the money to issue refunds. SXSW, like many small businesses across the country, is in a dire financial situation requiring that we rely on our contracts, which have a clearly stated no refunds policy. Though we wish we were able to do more, we are doing our best to reconcile the situation and offered a deferral package option to purchasers of 2020 registrations."