Snap's second-ever partner summit will now be online only, as major tech events are postponed and canceled over coronavirus fears

• Snap's private annual conference for publishing and ad partners, the Snap Partner Summit, will now be online-only due to coronavirus fears.
• In a statement to invitees seen by BI, Snap said it would make its keynote speech and product announcements online "out of an abundance of caution for the well-being of our partners and our team."
• This would have been only its second-ever partner summit, with the first one having taken place in spring 2019.
• Snap used its 2019 gathering to reveal a number of new features for Snapchat, including a feature that lets users share their Stories on third-party apps like Tinder and Houseparty.
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Snap's invite-only annual conference for Snapchat publisher, creator, and advertising partners, Snap Partner Summit, will now be online-only due to coronavirus fears.

A Snap statement to invitees seen by Business Insider read: "Out of an abundance of caution for the well-being of our partners and our team, we have decided to shift our plans for the April 2nd Snap Partner Summit.

"We will now deliver our keynote virtually and make our anticipated product announcements online. We invite you to tune in at Snap.com at 10:30 am PT on Thursday, April 2.

"We deeply value you and all you bring to the Snap platforms. We'll miss having the opportunity to have our partners together in person, but are excited to share what our team has been building with you and the world. Looking forward to sharing more with all of you on April 2nd!"

This would have been Snap's second-ever partner summit, with the first one taking place in April 2019.

Snap used its 2019 Summit to reveal a number of new features for Snapchat, which were largely centered around integration with third-party apps.

These included a feature that lets users share their Stories on third-party apps like Tinder and Houseparty, and one that lets users carry their Bitmoji - their interactive cartoon avatars - over to third-party apps like Venmo and Fitbit.

Snap's Partner Summit is one of several major tech conferences to have become online-only or been canceled outright, with the estimated economic loss from the cancellations totaling $1 billion.

Toronto's annual tech conglomeration, Collision, will be online-only, as will computing tech firm Nvidia's GTC conference.

Google canceled its own developer summit, I/O, while Facebook's flagship F8 conference and Mobile World Congress have also been nixed.

Snap did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

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