Calling the current policy and economic environment in the United States challenging, the organizers of a major conference set to bring to San Antonio thousands of cybersecurity leaders from around the world have put off the event.
“The InCyber Forum has made the difficult decision to postpone the San Antonio conference that had been scheduled for June 17-18,” said a spokesman for the forum.
The San Antonio conference would have been the organization’s first-ever U.S. edition of Europe’s largest annual cybersecurity conference.
“The current policy and economic environment remains both challenging and unpredictable, and the decision to pause the San Antonio conference is consistent with similar decisions made by several other U.S. conferences whose success is impacted by the broader geopolitical and policy landscape,” stated the spokesman in an email.
Visit San Antonio, which led discussions to bring the conference to the city, announced the event in March 2024 stating that it would bring 5,000 visitors to San Antonio and elevate the city’s stature as a premier meeting destination.
The event also was expected to solidify the city’s position as the “epicenter of cybersecurity innovation in the country,” said a statement from Visit SA.
InCyber Forum is more than a simple trade show, said Vincent Riou, manager of InCyber Forum Americas.
“The InCyber Forum San Antonio will bring together great minds to discuss both North American and global challenges,” he said, noting that selecting San Antonio was highly intentional because of its “non-coastal” location and as a key gateway to Latin America.
While the InCyber Forum is moving forward with its planned Montreal conference in October and a first-ever Tokyo conference in December, the San Antonio forum has been postponed. A new date has not been selected, said the spokesman.
“The San Antonio edition remains an option for the future,” he stated.
Chef Damien Watel, of Bistr09, told the Report he was sad to hear the event was taken off the schedule.
“This huge cyber security event started in my hometown, Lille, France, and I was proudly looking forward to sharing my ‘new hometown’ with more worldwide exposure,” he said. Watel added he also regrets the loss of economic impact the conference would have brought to the city.
Visit SA Interim CEO Mario Bass said he understands the need to pause the event until the current uncertainty settles.
“We have heard potential concerns from a handful of meetings groups that their attendance may be impacted by grant funding changes and we are diligently working with them to see how we may help them shore up their convention,” Bass stated.
Reductions in grant funding is just one of several pressures faced by the meetings and events sector, according to the travel services firm Atlas Travel.
Other issues include the growing movement to dismantle diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives; passport and visa anxiety; a reluctance from abroad to support the U.S. economy, and tariff uncertainty.
In recent weeks, several academic and scientific conferences that were to be held in the U.S. have been postponed, canceled or relocated due to researchers’ growing fears over the country’s immigration crackdown, stated a report by the publication Nature.
Organizers cited tougher rules around visas and border control, and other policies introduced by the current administration, as discouraging international scholars from attending events in the U.S.
