AUSTIN, Texas—As South by Southwest approached, tech and cultural leaders from more than a hundred countries were preparing to flock to the festival this weekend to network, build buzz and down a few drinks.

Walt Disney Co. rented out a sausages-and-beer restaurant to create an immersive experience promoting its X-Men spinoff movie, “The New Mutants.” DTSQ, a South Korean rock band, was ready to fly halfway around the world to play for 40 minutes on a rooftop bar. Austin food truck owner Kati Luedecke was preparing to order 1,200 turkey legs from a nearby town.

Then last week, city officials abruptly canceled South by Southwest. The same global crowd that made the festival a major moneymaker now made it a potential public safety threat in a time of coronavirus.

The rapidly spreading virus is now expected to cut into global economic growth this year. It has already been brutal for the fast-growing global events industry. Organizers of Coachella, the annual music and arts festival that draws 200,000 people to the Southern California desert, postponed the event for six months. The BNP Paribas Open, a high-profile international tennis tournament in Indian Wells, Calif., called off this year’s event.

That doesn’t count dozens of smaller professional conferences and sporting events canceled across the globe that reliably pump cash into regional economies. Even the Tokyo Summer Olympics might yet be curtailed.