After more than 40 years in Park City, Utah, the Sundance Film Festival will premiere in Boulder next year.
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Over the next ten months, the city must figure out how to house and transport an estimated 85,000 visitors, upgrade 10 local venues for screenings and manage the logistics of musical guests and celebrity attendees.
While some of this work falls to the Sundance Institute, the city of Boulder is responsible for operations, including building permits, transportation, and public safety.
After spending time in Park City during the festival’s final turn there in January, officials returned to Boulder with a mission: prepare the city for a deluge of visitors from around the world.
Here are two of the biggest jobs:
Transportation
With high parking fees and road closures, riding the bus has long been a key feature of Sundance. Attendees would jump on the city’s free bus system to get from screenings to panel discussions to parties.
“Especially late at night. It's a lot of fun late at night. Try riding the bus between 12 and two in the morning, and you'll eavesdrop on all kinds of life stories,” Jamie Duis, a long-time festival volunteer, said, after getting off the bus at Park City’s main street one January afternoon.
Boulder is planning on a free, bus-focused festival too, relying on the city’s existing HOP Bus.
“Fortunately, almost every single one of the venues that Sundance has identified for screenings and panels are along that route,” Cris Jones, Boulder’s director of strategic partnerships, said.
The exception is Chautauqua Auditorium, which is south of the other venues and not currently served by the HOP.
That circulator currently runs until 10 p.m. and will likely expand during Sundance; some film screenings start at midnight.
“So, those are folks that aren't getting out till, you know, as late as two o'clock or later in the morning. And so we want to make sure that those folks have good transit options as well,” said Jones.
Transportation officials hope to avoid a crush of cars; the expectation is that attendees and workers will rely on various buses to get around Boulder and beyond.
“People will also be staying in Louisville and Lafayette and Longmont and so we want to make sure that they know how to get into Boulder without using a private vehicle,”
Darcy Kitching, executive director of Transportation Connections, said.
Options include:
- The Flatiron Flyer provides transportation from Denver International Airport, Denver, and other Boulder area towns.
- The BOLT from Longmont and a new bus service from the east, between Brighton and Boulder, which is set to launch later this year.
While some free transit passes will be available, negotiations over the rider fares and service expansions are ongoing, as are plans for how to educate visitors and residents on their options.
For now, Kitching recommends the Northwest Navigator, a new regional transit tool, for Sundance trip planning, as well as the Transit app. She wants to emphasize that visitors should not need a car to get around Sundance.
“You never know who you might run into. This is one of the most exciting things about Sundance, is that famous people are going to be walking around and taking the bus and out in the community with you. And so that's another reason not to be driving,” Kitching said.
Lodging
Just as the crowds of attendees, volunteers and workers will need to get around, many of them will also need a place to stay during Sundance, which runs from Jan. 21 to 31, next year.
The city is currently home to around 3,000 hotel rooms, according to Visit Boulder, plus 10,000 more within a 20 mile radius. Additional hotel rooms will be released as the festival approaches.
“We want as many people as possible who want to participate in the festival to be able to stay in Boulder, as close to Boulder as possible, because it's all part of the experience,” Jones said.
In order to do that, officials are working to open up more rental capacity with two ordinances:
- One, passed in September, simplifying the short-term rental requirements with a new festival-specific license.
- The other, if approved, would allow property owners to have both a long-term and short-term rental license. This would allow renters to sublet their homes during Sundance, for example.
The result is that many Boulder homeowners will be navigating short-term rentals for the first time.
In response, Boulder resident and landlord, Jeff Lesser, started a new company, Marquee Stays, to help homeowners, like himself, figure it all out. So far, around 15 have signed up for services.
“There's a lot of people who see, you know, dollar signs for renting out their homes, but might not understand the challenges that come along with it around licensing and how to set up your home to allow guests to stay there, and how to coordinate all the things that go with it,” Lesser said.
Things like getting good photos of the listing, setting the home up for renters, scheduling cleaners and coordinating with guests. Pricing is tricky, too.
Lesser says any comparison to Park City is pointless- there are too many variables. For now, most Boulder hotel rooms are booked. Some downtown homes are listed for more than $100,000 for the ten-day festival.
“To be really transparent, it's early. We don't know exactly how these things are, how the market dynamics are going to shake out,” said Lesser. “I think we do know that there's going to be a lot more demand than there is supply, and that might lead to some high prices,” Lesser said.
