For over 40 years, the prestigious Sundance Film Festival has been held annually in Park City, Utah. After bids, negotiations, and rumblings about a change of venue, Sundance has signed a 10-year deal with Boulder, Colorado. The festival will move to its new home starting in 2027.
The festival had to take two years off from in-person screenings due to the COVID-19 pandemic. During this time, the Sundance Institute decided that a dramatic reset would be appropriate.
“Part of the decision-making process was around opportunity for growth,” Amanda Kelso, Sundance Institute CEO, told Deadline. “That is also an important factor for us. Knowing that we can be in a town that has 100,000 people means that it has more venues, more spaces, and more opportunities in how we can be expansive of the festival moving forward.”
Why Boulder?
One of the biggest issues the event and Utah locals had was the strain it put on the tiny town. Boulder, however, is much bigger and has the University of Colorado, putting $34 million in tax incentives into the deal. Sundance hopes the new location will be more accessible to a wider audience and filmmakers.
“Colorado is thrilled to welcome the Sundance Film Festival to its new home in Boulder starting in 2027,” says Governor Jared Polis. “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. Thank you to the Sundance Institute and all of the partners like the City of Boulder, Visit Boulder, the Boulder Chamber of Commerce, and I also want to thank the bipartisan legislators and leadership who have worked tirelessly to make this possible.”
“From a sense of space perspective, it’s this really vibrant town that’s surrounded by nature,” Kelso explains about Boulder. “You can imagine walking from venue to venue, metabolizing the film you just watched and communing with nature which is something [founder] Robert Redford felt so strongly about. When you think about a sense of place perspective, Boulder is a cool town, it’s an arts town. There are poets, musicians and filmmakers who live here. It’s a tech town. It’s also a college town — 38,000 students attend University of Colorado Boulder, and that creates an opportunity for us to think about audience development in a more expansive way.”
The Trouble With Utah
While Sundance maintains the move has nothing to do with politics. Utah did just pass House Bill 77, which bans LGBTIQA+ pride flags from being flown on/in government buildings like schools and City Halls. Threatening fines of $500 per day for each pride flag flown.
Despite Utah Governor Spencer Cox fighting to keep the festival. He allowed this to pass, without his signature, after vetoing several other proposed bills. Such a blatantly anti-LGBTIQA+ law flies in the face of Sundance’s messages of inclusion. It’s hard to believe it didn’t factor into the decision at all.
House Bill 77 sponsors Representative Trevor Lee and Senator Daniel McCay have been vocal about their stances. Though Lee claims, “Sundance has nothing to do with the bill,” his counterpart clearly disagrees. After the bill passed McCay posted on X (formally Twitter) that Sundance “promotes porn” and “does not fit in Utah anymore.”
Sundance’s last festival in Utah will be held in Park City from January 22nd through February 1st, 2026. It heads to its new home in Boulder in 2027.
