Barkation, startup conference by ex-Slush Tokyo team, cancels 1st edition this year

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The Bark Launch Party took place in October in Harajuku, Tokyo.
Image credit: Bark

See the original story in Japanese.

As previously reported, a brand new startup conference called Barkation was announced to take place on February 19 and 20 this year, primarily organized by the former Slush Tokyo team, but we learned today that it will be canceled this year. The main reason behind the cancellation is the team couldn’t spend enough time preparing for the conference, such as training volunteers, and they will focus on building the Bark community this year.

Thanks to their concept that the conference shouldn’t come first but is just as part of the Bark community, the cancellation will give no significant impact on their ongoing activities. In an interview with Bridge, Bark CEO Haruka Furukawa said her team decided to cancel because they don’t want participants from Japan and the rest of the world to get disappointed.

Over the past few years, there has been a series of announcements of cancellations and suspensions of global startup conferences. Austria’s flagship conference Pioneers, which has been running for eight years since 2011, announced a break last year. Tech in Asia has shut down their conferences in Singapore and Tokyo and currently runs it only in Jakarta. RISE, hosted in Asia by the WebSummit organizer, has also announced that it will cancel the 2020 edition over the recent tension in Hong Kong.