Sundance Film Festival to Relocate to Boulder, Colorado, in 2027

FILE - The marquee of the Egyptian Theatre appears during the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah on Jan. 28, 2020. (Photo by Arthur Mola/Invision/AP, File)

After a yearlong search, the Sundance Film Festival announced Thursday that its new home will be Boulder, Colorado, keeping Sundance in the mountains but moving it out of Park City, the Utah ski town that had for decades provided the premier independent film gathering its picturesque snowy backdrop.
According to The Associated Press, organizers said that after 40 years in the mountains, the festival had outgrown Park City, and lacked the necessary theaters or affordable housing to continue hosting what has become one of North America’s most sprawling movie events. Sundance had narrowed down the options to Salt Lake City (with a smaller presence in Park City), Cincinnati and Boulder.
Boulder emerged as their choice due to its close proximity to nature, its small-town charm and an engaged community that, organizer said, provides Sundance the ideal setting for its future.
“Boulder is a tech town, it’s a college town, it’s an arts town, and it’s a mountain town,” Amanda Kelso, acting chief executive of the Sundance Institute, said in an interview Thursday from Boulder. “At 100,000 people, a larger town than Park City, it gives us the space to expand.”
Kelso, Sundance Institute board chair Ebs Burnough and Eugene Hernandez, director of the festival and head of programming, spoke shortly before announcing the festival’s move. Local officials, who helped lure Sundance with $34 million in tax credits over 10 years, applauded the decision.
“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,” Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, said in a statement.
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican, said Thursday that Sundance will come to regret leaving Utah.
"As I’ve said from the beginning, we wanted Sundance to stay,” Cox said in a statement. “We made that clear to their leadership and put together a highly competitive package. Ultimately, this decision is theirs to make, but I believe it’s a mistake and that, one day, they’ll realize they left behind not just a place, but their heritage.”