Coronavirus Fears Lead to Shift of APOS Conference to Later Date

By Vivienne Chow

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – The annual APOS conference in Bali, Indonesia, a leading event in Asia for the media, telecoms and entertainment industries, has become the latest victim of COVID-19. Its organizers, Media Partners Asia, have decided to move the event from spring to fall, joining a long list of cultural and entertainment events that have been postponed or cancelled in Asia.

Media Partners Asia said following stakeholder consultation regarding the globally spreading novel coronavirus, the event will be moved from April 21-23 to Sept. 1-3. The venue will remain at Ayana Resort in Bali, which has been the location for for the past decade.

Since the outbreak of the novel began to spread from Wuhan in mainland China to a number of territories across Asia and beyond, a number of large-scale events have been postponed, including the 44th Hong Kong Intl. Film Festival and 18th Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum, both moved from mid-March to summer, with dates to be finalized. Hong Kong FilMart has been postponed from March to Aug. 27-29. Hong Kong Film Awards will be postponed from April to May, but the glamorous awards ceremony has been taken off from the menu. Earlier Art Basel, which has a film section, cancelled its March Hong Kong show.

Far East Film Festival in Udine has also been forced to postpone its festival run from April 24-May 2 to June 26-July 4 after Northern Italy, where the festival takes place, was hit hard by COVID-19 the past week.

As of March 2, the coronavirus has infected more than 89,000 and claimed over 3,000 lives around the world, with mainland China, South Korea and Italy being the top three affected countries.