The Sundance Film Festival is Boulder bound, leaving its home of four decades in Park City, Utah, for a new chapter in neighboring Colorado.
Organizers announced their decision Thursday after a yearlong search in which numerous U.S. cities vied to host the nation’s premiere independent film festival. The other finalists were Cincinnati, Ohio, and a combined Salt Lake City and Park City bid.
Festival leaders said politics did not influence their move from conservative Utah to liberal Colorado. They did however make “ethos and equity values” one of their criteria and referred to Boulder in their announcement as a “welcoming environment.”
Why was Boulder chosen?
Boulder stood out to organizers as an artsy, walkable and medium-sized city close to nature. It has one of the highest concentrations of professional artists in the U.S. and is home to the University of Colorado, where the film program contributes to a vibrant art scene, Sundance leaders said. They noted the large student population and campus venues will create new opportunities to engage young people in the event.
Nearby nature in the Rocky Mountain foothills offers room for visitors and artists to stretch their legs and draw inspiration from high country scenery. It’s also just over half an hour from downtown Denver and not much farther to the city’s international airport.
When Sundance leaders began their search for a new home, they said the festival had outgrown the charming ski town of Park City and developed an air of exclusivity that took focus away from the films. Boulder, a city of 100,000 people, has space for a more centralized festival. But it’s not all that more affordable for attendees. The cost of living is estimated to be 31% higher than the national average, versus Park City’s 33%, according to the Economic Research Institute.
What is Boulder known for?
Actor Jonah Hill, “South Park” creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone and — perhaps most significantly — Sundance founder Robert Redford all attended the University of Colorado in Boulder. The school has a heady party culture that sometimes spills into the surrounding streets. The city is also home to a private Buddhist college.
Redford, 88, gave the festival’s relocation his blessing.
Just outside Denver’s suburbs, Boulder has its own identity — and decades ago a very unique, hippie vibe. Well before Colorado voters legalized recreational marijuana in 2012, thousands of University of Colorado students and others would gather on campus to smoke pot every April 20.
Today, Boulder retains its charm at the foot of the sandstone Flatirons, a foothill range crisscrossed by hiking trails that begin at the Colorado Chautauqua, a cultural and performing arts hub dating to the 1800s. The pedestrian-only Pearl Street Mall with its nearby theaters could provide a similar central hub to Park City’s Main Street.
It’s no longer ideal for hippies, however. The university kicked the 4/20 weed fest off campus and soaring housing costs — the median home price is now $1.1 million — make living there unattainable for most.
A history of film in Boulder
Films have been shown in Boulder since 1898, when the first kinetoscope, a device co-invented by Thomas Edison, showed moving pictures to one person at a time at the Chautauqua Auditorium.
Besides Redford, Hollywood names who attended the University of Colorado include Dalton Trumbo, a screenwriter for “Spartacus” and “Roman Holiday” who was among the Hollywood Ten blacklisted for suspected communist sympathies late 1940s and 1950s.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Boulder locations featured as backdrops in the Woody Allen film “Sleeper” and Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining.” And Boulder was the fictional setting of the TV show “Mork & Mindy.”
Today, it’s home to more than a dozen smaller film festivals, including the Boulder International Film Festival and Chautauqua Silent Film Series.
What is the festival’s history in Utah?
Sundance has called Park City home for 41 years. Past leaders of the festival said Redford chose the mountains of Utah as a space to foster independent filmmaking away from the hustle and bustle of Hollywood. Utah’s iconic red rock landscapes have served as a backdrop to many films, including “Thelma and Louise,” “Forrest Gump” and “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” for which the festival is named.
This year, thousands of festivalgoers affixed bright yellow stickers to their winter coats that read “Keep Sundance in Utah” in a last-ditch effort to convince its leaders to keep it local.
Sundance will have one more festival in Park City in January 2026 before moving to Boulder in 2027.
What kind of economic boost does it provide?
Over four decades, Sundance helped transform its quaint mountain hometown into a renowned winter destination. Home prices skyrocketed, luxury hotels emerged and some local businesses shuttered while others thrived.
Out-of-state visitors spent an estimated $106.4 million in Utah during the 2024 festival. Its total economic impact that year was estimated at $132 million, with 1,730 jobs for Utah residents and $70 million in wages for local workers. Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said he was sad to see Sundance go, but the state’s economy could sustain the loss.
Utah offered Sundance $3.5 million to stay. Colorado lawmakers proposed $34 million in tax credits over 10 years to lure it away.
