What Utah is doing to try to keep the Sundance Film Festival

SALT LAKE CITY ( ABC4 ) — The Sundance Film Festival announced the top three host cities it’s considering for the festival’s future venue, and Utah made it on the shortlist.

As festival officials weigh Utah’s qualities against those of Cincinnati, Ohio and Boulder, Co., local leaders are working to present the best plan to keep the festival in the state.

The film festival has been held in Park City and Salt Lake City since its start in the 1980s. Earlier this year, the Sundance Institute announced the festival may relocate starting in 2027.

“Sundance Film Festival has been a part of our cultural identity for over 40 years, and we’re all very committed to keeping it here,” Virginia Pearce, director of the Utah Film Commission, said. “We are doing everything we can to work with Sundance.”

Utah’s pitch to Sundance

Pearce is on the host committee — comprised of city, county, and state leaders — working with Sundance to reimagine the future of the festival here in Utah. One of the committee’s most notable pitches is to move the majority of the festival from Park City to Utah’s capital.

“That proposal of moving the majority of the festival to Salt Lake would be kind of an entirely new approach to the festival experience than we’ve known in the past,” Pearce said.

She said this helps festival organizers see Utah as a “new, exciting place” and would be an “entirely new approach” to how the festival operates.

Moving the majority of it to Salt Lake City would not only bring new energy to the festival but would also improve convenience for festival-goers.

Pearce said some benefits of the move include proximity to the Salt Lake City Airport, access to resources and infrastructure, and greater transportation and parking options.

The transportation in Salt Lake City will be an important improvement as she said it has been a point of frustration for some attendees in the past as the snow can make it difficult to get around Park City.

Sundance tours Salt Lake City

Salt Lake City Erin Mendenhall said Sundance officials toured the city last month and were “pretty impressed with how much we’ve grown even in the last ten years.”

Mendenhall said the city is not the same as it was 40 years ago when the film festival began. She said it is currently evolving through efforts such as “pedestrianizing Main Street, a green loop activation, sports entertainment, convention and culture district.”

“The resounding theme at the end of the day from the August visit that we had with the Sundance crew was that they saw this city in a way they’d really never had before,” she said.

Mendenhall said Utah leaders highlighted the creativity and diversity in the city, as well as the strong relationship between city public transit and the Utah Transit Authority (UTA). She said that relationship is “a big part of the story of opportunity that we’ve been telling Sundance.”

“We’ve been very engaged in the process in trying to recruit Sundance to imagine their future here with us in Salt Lake City,” she said. “As long as it takes, we’re at the table.”

What are the odds?

It’s unknown at this time what Utah’s odds are at keeping the festival, but both Pearce and Mendenhall said they believe Utah’s history with the festival will work in its favor.

“We have so many amazing volunteers and staff that have worked over the years and … we have a great audience, educated audience, that is really ready to embrace the festival every year,” Pearce said.

While the committee is working hard with the Sundance Institute and is optimistic about Utah’s chances of keeping the festival, Pearce recognizes that the outcome is out of their hands.

“Ultimately they’re going to have to decide what is the best fit for the festival,” she said.

MJ Jewkes contributed to reporting.

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