Google Cloud Next, the company’s cloud computing conference that draws thousands of attendees to the Moscone Center annually, will be held in Las Vegas next year.
“We can confirm Google Cloud Next ’24 will be held at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas on April 9-11. We will be sharing additional information in the coming months,” the company said in an emailed statement it attributed to a Google spokesperson.
The company did not cite a reason for the move.
It was unclear whether the event would eventually return to San Francisco as the city’s downtown struggles to rebound from a pandemic that emptied its offices and spotlighted the city’s struggles with street conditions and property crime.
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Ken Bukowski, San Francisco’s director of convention facilities, said the city is still talking to Google about the possibility of having the Cloud conference at Moscone Center again in 2025.
“The experience in Vegas is going to be very different from the gorgeous, partially outdoor city experience that we have here,” he said, speaking before reports of the conference being relocated were confirmed.
The conference, which wrapped up a three-day program Thursday, has been hosted by San Francisco for years, although 2023 was the first time since the pandemic hit that it held the full-scale, in-person event since 2019.
Tongo Eisen-Martin, San Francisco’s poet laureate, shares a poem during the Google Cloud Next conference at Moscone Center as activists protest the company’s AI contracts with the Israeli government and military.
Felix Uribe/Special to the Chronicle
The first day of the conference was also the site of a sizable protest against Google’s contracting with the Israeli government to build tech tools that, activists say, are used to surveil and oppress Palestinians in occupied areas.
The news comes as San Francisco is gearing up for the largest tech conference of the year, Salesforce’s Dreamforce, which is expected to draw tens of thousands of visitors to the city this month who snap up hotel rooms and fill restaurants.
The Chronicle recently quoted CEO Marc Benioff saying that this year’s Dreamforce could be the last one held in San Francisco if issues of homelessness and drug use interfere with the event.
A Salesforce spokesperson could not immediately be reached for comment on the news of the Google move.
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A report from San Francisco Travel, the city’s tourism bureau, said that so far this year, its convention sales team had booked 16 upcoming events at Moscone Center, including the 2024 Visa Payments Forum and the 2026 Super Bowl LX & NFL Experience.
“In early July, Google canceled its Moscone Center booking for the Google Cloud Next ’24 summit,” SF Travel spokesperson Lori Lincoln said in an emailed statement. “San Francisco Travel notified stakeholders and the hotel community at that time. The Google Cloud NEXT ’24 had been scheduled to be held at Moscone Center in February of next year.”
Lincoln said the report, released in August, accounted for the cancellation, so the projects for 2024 remain unchanged.
Moscone Center is slated to host 21 events accounting for 426,951 hotel room nights in 2024, down 34% compared with 2023, according to the report.
“Since 2019, we’ve been reporting 2024 would be a more challenging year for conventions given some cancellations and it being an off year for rotational events,” Joe D’Alessandro, San Francisco Travel’s president and CEO, said in the report.
“But every year after 2024 shows steady growth in conventions, with 2028 and beyond trending to be above 90% of the average,” he added.
Reach Chase DiFeliciantonio: chase.difeliciantonio@sfchronicle.com; Twitter: @ChaseDiFelice. Reach J.D. Morris: jd.morris@sfchronicle.com
