As the Omicron variant of COVID-19 spreads, RSA Conference announced Wednesday that it has delayed its February 2022 San Francisco event to June 2022. RSA is the largest cybersecurity and IT convention in the country.
Originally scheduled for Feb. 7 to 10, the event will now take place June 6 to 9 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. Digital passes will be available to those unable to join in-person. The move marks the second year that the RSA conference was bumped from February to spring, which ended up being entirely virtual in 2021.
“With the surge in cases of the Omicron variant in the US and around the world, we believe the best decision we can make is to delay the event until later in the year when we can bring the industry safely together in-person," Linda Gray Martin, vice president of the RSA Conference, said in a statement.
The decision to push the conference comes a week after it announced its keynote speaker lineup, which includes CISA Founding Director Chris Krebs, journalist Katie Couric and Color of Change President Rashad Robinson.
The move is also the latest sign that omicron is rattling the tech world. Large tech companies including TikTok, Amazon and Twitter have dropped out of their in-person appearances at CES, the largest tech industry conference in the U.S., but CES itself is still planned to go on.