After 40 years in Park City, Utah, the community is saying goodbye to the Sundance Film Festival that has brought tens of thousands of attendees each year.
“Sundance has been fun in a lot of ways and it’s been hectic in a lot of ways – it’s kind of chaos in a really charming way,” said Nate Barkdull, who has been working at Davanza’s, a local pizza restaurant, for 20 years.
While greeting everyone walking through the door, Barkdull reflected on the regulars who have been coming in for beer and pizza, once a year, for decades. He remembers chatting with the actor, Paul Rudd, while he sat at the bar years ago.
“I've been taking the trip down memory lane in my head all day today,” Barkdull said.
This year’s festival is also the first since founder Robert Redford died last year. Events and archival screenings are honoring his legacy. Volunteers are wearing yellow festival jackets with “In honor of Robert Redford” stamped on the sleeve.
Now, after a competitive bidding process, Sundance will be moving to Boulder in 2027 after decades of shaping the independent film industry from Park City, a town of 8,000.
“I'm not surprised that it's going to Boulder, Colorado. I think the Sundance Institute and the festival is going to feel quite at home in Boulder,” Barkdull said. “I think the infrastructure that Boulder has, it's a much bigger city, lots of space to hold it.
After agreeing to an incentives package for Sundance earlier this month, Boulder’s plans for how the festival will function are being worked out. Key logistics include traffic, transportation, public safety and lodging.
Representatives from the county and city of Boulder and the University of Colorado Boulder are in Park City for this year’s festival to observe how things, like fire inspections for decked out businesses, are done.
Cris Jones, the director of strategic partnerships for the city of Boulder, said it's accustomed to hosting big events, but that Sundance will be more complex.
“We think about CU football games, that bring in a ton of people, but…they come in and they go out,” Jones said. “This is a two week engagement. A lot goes into it before and after the festival as well.”
The economic benefits of hosting the festival are significant. Visitors spent around $160 million in Utah during last year’s festival, according to an analysis by the Sundance Institute.
But not all local shops benefit from more tourism.
"Businesses like ours don't make any money during that time,” said Scott Richardson, a landscape artist and art consultant at Mountain Trails Gallery on Main Street in Park City. “It's just a lot of people focused on the festival, and not really caring about anything else in town.”
Richardson was born and raised in Park City and has seen Sundance change over the years. He’s grown tired of the traffic congestion in town.
“We turn into, like, a little Los Angeles, every year at this time, and it's just insane,” he said. “I am actually happy to see it leave.”
