© 2025
NPR News, Colorado Stories
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Colorado lawmakers offer $34 million in tax incentives to land the Sundance Film Festival

A lit sign is seen at dusk that reads Sundance Film Festival. Festive lights are strung across the street and buildings in the background.
Chris Pizzello
/
Invision/AP
FILE - The Egyptian Theatre is pictured on the eve of the 2017 Sundance Film Festival on Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2017, in Park City, Utah.

Colorado lawmakers want to sweeten the pot in the campaign to land the Sundance Film Festival.

“Our sights are set on raising the curtain for Colorado as the new home of the world-famous Sundance Film Festival,” Gov. Jared Polis said in his State of the State address Thursday.

Legislation introduced this week — House Bill 1005 — would offer $34 million in tax incentives to a film festival that sells more than 100,000 tickets and lures more than 10,000 out-of-state visitors. While the film festival incentive legislation does not specifically name the Sundance Film Festival, there are few film gatherings that would qualify.

And only one major film festival is considering Colorado. The Utah-based Sundance Institute in September named Boulder as one of three finalists to host the vaunted Sundance Film Festival from 2027 through 2036. Cincinnati and the festival’s 39-year host Park City — partnered with Salt Lake City down the road — are also vying to host the world’s second-largest film festival.

The legislation offered this week by Reps. Julie McCluskie, D-Dillon, and Brianna Titone, D-Arvada, and Sens. Judy Amabile, D-Boulder, and Mark Baisley, R-Woodland Park, creates tax incentives for organizers of a “global film festival entity,” based on festival expenditures and annual visitor counts.

To read the entire story, visit The Colorado Sun.