The Sundance Film Festival has a new home.
After four decades in Park City and a year-long search process to find a new location at the expiration of its current contract, the beloved indie film festival is heading to Boulder, Colorado for its 2027 iteration. Boulder beat out many other locations, most notably fellow finalists Cincinnati and Salt Lake City, the latter of which would have included some operations in Park City. The new contract with the city of Boulder and the state of Colorado will be for 10 years, Sundance officials confirmed.
“As change is inevitable, we must always evolve and grow, which has been at the core of our survival. This move will ensure that the festival continues its work of risk-taking, supporting innovative storytellers, fostering independence, and entertaining and enlightening audiences,” Sundance Institute president and founder Robert Redford said in a statement. “I am grateful to the Boulder community for its support, and I look forward to seeing what the future holds for the festival there.”
In recent years, Park City has been seen as a less than hospitable home. Many agencies and studios have been sending far fewer people to Park City, where housing for Sundance can easily reach into the tens of thousands of dollars, as Hollywood has tightened its belt due to industry-wide cost-cutting. Locals also have grown increasingly tired of the influx of people to their small town, with public transportation being co-opted and traffic inundating what is commonly an already busy time with peak ski season.
72,840 people attended the 2024 fest, according to Sundance, one-third of which traveled from out of state. This is compared to 116,800 people in 2020, the last year of the festival before the pandemic pushed the festival online only for the next two years.
Finding Sundance’s new home was a year-long affair, a process of winnowing down the finalists from 67 cities that sent in comprehensive information. Practical considerations taken into account were travel (several industry vets griped that there was only one direct flight daily from LAX to Cincinnati), public transportation, housing and, of course, available movie theater venues. Sundance visited the sites of the finalists multiple times, testing out infrastructure — riding the local transportation and looking at hotel rooms — and surveying the potential spaces for movie theaters, which needed to include at least one venue with a capacity of 1,300 for film premiere screenings.
The festival will now be serviced by the Denver International Airport which has multiple non-stop flights from 46 states and many international locations, as well. Due to Boulder being a college town, hotels are abundant and Sundance says it is working with hotels to ensure stable pricing without surges during the festival time. The non-profit also noted that the nearby state school, the University of Colorado Boulder, allows for a local and engaged youth audience. The city has already long been host to cinephiles with the Boulder International Film Festival, which launched in 2005 and has since grown to host upwards of 20,000 guests each year, per that festival. It’s unclear how the move will impact the competing festival.
Sundance declined to comment on any details on potential tax and other financial incentives offered by its new host state. Board Chair Ebs Burnough tells The Hollywood Reporter, “What we’ll say is each one of the finalists really brought their best to the table in every possible way.”
As far as aesthetics, like Park City, Boulder provides beautiful natural surroundings with the Rocky Mountains. Sundance’s acting CEO Amanda Kelso tells THR, “One of the things that matters so much to us, something that we take from Robert Redford’s notion of our founding principles and our mission, is the idea of celebrating in a place that is that has a sense of space as well as a sense of place. And one of the things that’s so lovely about Boulder is that you are surrounded by the Flat Irons. It’s just a gorgeous town.”
One concern expressed by festival veterans of the move was the potential politics of a new location for the film festival focused on free expression and has been known to screen challenging films. Utah, a conservative state, has also become increasingly hostile to inclusion. The Utah legislature recently passed a bill aiming to ban LGBTQ+ flags from government buildings and schools. That followed an earlier law that restricted transgender people from using bathrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity.
While the moves may not have had a direct impact on the day-to-day of the festival, the conservative ideology behind it stands in stark contrast to Sundance’s mission and core values as well as the crowd it hosts each year. Local politicians have, in recent days, also made their message loud and clear. Daniel McCay, a Utah state senator representing south Salt Lake and north Utah counties, slammed the festival on X, by posting, “Bye Felicia…Sundance promotes porn. Sundance promotes alternative lifestyles. Sundance promotes anti-[Latter Day Saints] themes. Sundance does not fit in Utah anymore.”
Sundance leadership said local politics did not prove to be a consideration in the search for the festival’s new home. “We’ve been in Utah for 40 years, so it’s not like we’re examining every bill that gets passed,” says Burnough. “This has really been a search for how the Sundance Film Festival evolves, and how we continue on our mission of supporting artists and engaging audiences. So, I will be honest, politics was not a factor as we looked at this.”
For his part, Colorado Governor Jared Polis offered in a statement, “Here in our state we celebrate the arts and film industry as a key economic driver, job creator, and important contributor to our thriving culture. Now, with the addition of the iconic Sundance Film Festival, we can expect even more jobs, a huge benefit for our small businesses including stores and restaurants.”
With the festival heading to Boulder in 2027, the fest’s final year in Park City will be in 2026, with a final bow scheduled for Jan. 22—Feb. 1.
“I have been going to this festival for nearly 35 years, Park City is such an important part of the story of the Sundance Film Festival,” says festival director Eugene Hernandez, adding of the future: “[Boulder] is a place where we can build. This is a place that foundationally, is so strong and aligns so beautifully with Sundance.”