Canadian Screen Week and the Canadian Screen Awards are the latest casualties of coronavirus.
“The Canadian Academy is deeply saddened to announce the cancellation of all Canadian Screen Week activities in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver, including the national broadcast gala on Sunday, March 29th,” the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television announced on its website Thursday. “Following a thorough review of Canadian Screen Week events and an assessment of the potential risk to our attendees, we feel this is the only responsible decision at this time.”
“We are committed to the celebration of our Canadian Screen Award nominees and Special Award honourees and will share an update in the coming weeks.”
Canadian Screen Week joins JUNO Awards celebrations, which were set to get underway in Saskatoon later today, as the latest Canadian events to be cancelled or postponed as event organizers exercise an abundance of caution around large gatherings.
#SocialDistancing, #CancelEverythingNow and #CoronavirusPandemic were trending on Twitter in Canada Thursday afternoon as the NHL and NBA both announced they were suspending their seasons, and Major League Baseball halted the remainder of spring training, pushing back the start of the regular season by two weeks. NCAA March Madness games have now also been cancelled.
As well, the American Hockey League, Canadian Hockey League, and Quebec Major Junior Hockey League have paused their seasons, while the World Curling Championships in Prince George, BC and the World Figure Skating Championships in Montreal are cancelled.
According to Billboard, Live Nation is also instructing its tours to return home, both domestically and internationally. It will reportedly re-evaluate the situation in April.
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