KITCHENER -- The 2020 True North Festival and Fluxible 2020 have both been cancelled for concerns about COVID-19.

The announcement to scrap True North came from Waterloo Region tech hub Communitech on Tuesday.

“The health and safety of our visitors, members, staff and the broader Waterloo Region community is of the utmost importance to not only Communitech but to our festival partners,” said Iain Klugman, CEO and president at Communitech. “It is out of an abundance of caution, and with much disappointment, that we concluded that cancelling this year’s event is the right thing to do.”

The third annual event was set to take place from June 1-7 across the region, draw 25,000 people, and feature, “tech founders, creative thinkers, movers, shakers, and policymakers”.

Commuitech says they are still looking at the possibility of offering online programming as well as hoping to resume the festival in 2021.

“We have been working closely with the regional health teams, with the cities, the municipalities, and our partners,” said Klugman. “We came to the conclusion that things didn’t appear to be getting any better and that now was the right time to cancel and start working on 2021.”

The organizers of Fluxible, another tech conference that would have taken place during the first week of June, also announced on Tuesday that their 2020 event was cancelled.

“The options were to continue, cancel, or postpone,” said organizer Mark Connoly. “Cancel seemed like the least risky.”

The event started as a two-day festival in 2012 and grew from there. Over 1,000 people were expected to attend it during the week.