GSMA has canceled its flagship MWC Barcelona event for the first time in the show’s 33-year history citing ongoing concerns over possible spread of the coronavirus. The event was set to get underway on Feb. 24, but a wave of cancellations by network operators and vendors became too much for the event organizers to overcome.

MWC Barcelona was ultimately scrapped due to growing concerns over potential exposure to the coronavirus, which was first detected about six weeks ago in Wuhan, China. It has since spread to more than 45,000 people and claimed at least 1,100 lives, according to the latest figures provided by health officials.

The industry association maintained as recently as Sunday that the show would go on, but multiple large and omnipresent companies have since abandoned plans to attend and showcase news at the event. At least 20 companies pulled out of the event earlier today, including Vodafone, Deutsche Telekom, BT, Nokia, and Samsung Networks.

Pressure has been mounting on GSMA for the last week. LG was the first major vendor to cancel plans on Feb. 5 and many others have followed in kind, including Amazon, Ericsson, Nvidia, Sony, NTT DoCoMo, AT&T, Sprint, Intel, Cisco, Facebook, Rakuten, and others. All cited concerns over the spread of the coronavirus at MWC Barcelona.

“With due regard to the safe and healthy environment in Barcelona and the host country today, the GSMA has cancelled MWC Barcelona 2020 because the global concern regarding the coronavirus outbreak, travel concern, and other circumstances make it impossible for GSMA to hold the event,” GSMA CEO John Hoffman wrote in a statement.

This would have been Barcelona’s 15th consecutive year holding the event, and the cancellation has been estimated to cost the city about $500 million in economic activity. The show was expected to meet or exceed the 109,000 attendees it hosted at last year’s event.

Prior to reaching this decision, GSMA enacted multiple actions in a bid to ensure the health and safety of attendees, but those efforts appear to have been in vain. The association banned all travelers from the Hubei province, where the virus is most prevalent; required all travelers who have visited China to prove they have been outside of the country for at least 14 days prior to the event; and said attendees would be required to “self-certify that they have not been in contact with anyone infected.”

For most of its attendees and exhibitors, MWC Barcelona is the most important week of the year. It sets the stage for what’s to occur throughout the coming year, and provides a global stage for operators and vendors to share news and strategic goals with media and customers.

Companies that waited to make a decision on attendance have now been provided ample cover to desert plans for the event with little to no repercussions. However, a large amount of dealmaking occurs at the event every year so companies are undoubtedly scrambling to come up with alternative plans to get in front of potential customers quickly.

The rapid unraveling of MWC Barcelona has also underscored and inflamed a growing chasm between Chinese-based technology companies and many other parts of the world. Geopolitical battles centering around security and trade have pitted China’s tech giants, particularly Huawei, against other industry stalwarts in an entirely new context of late.

Moreover and unrelated to those challenges, the coronavirus’ origins has placed Chinese companies in an unfortunate position, requiring those exhibitors to take more stringent preventative measures to allay concerns. Fears of exposure to the virus have reached the point of xenophobia in some instances and, with about 5,000 visitors originally expected to attend from China, there was the very real risk that some ugly prejudices might have been on display at the event.

GSMA said the show will return to Barcelona and go on as planned next year.