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'Please don't leave': The $132 million problem facing a Utah ski town

Park City, Utah, braces for the departure of the Sundance Film Festival

By Dan Gentile

At the Sundance premiere of “Sly Lives! (aka the Burden of Black Genius),” one of the festival directors thanked Park City and the state of Utah for hosting the event — and was immediately interrupted.

“And it should stay here!” yelled out Cindy Sanders, a budding documentary filmmaker who lives in Humboldt County.

Like so many ski towns, Park City depends heavily on tourism. Visiting skiers and hikers prop up Park City’s economy year-round. But the biggest week of the year is the Sundance Film Festival, which takes place in late January and has built a reputation as the epicenter of independent filmmaking. Founded in 1978 as the U.S. Film Festival and transformed into Sundance by Robert Redford in 1985, the fest has become synonymous with Park City over the past 40 years — but that’s about to change, and in the process, could leave a $132 million hole in the town’s economy.

As Sundance’s contract with Park City approaches expiration after the 2026 event, the festival announced that it will be taking bids for a new home for 2027. It’s made little official comment to explain the decision to leave Park City, but many locals and festival attendees posit that the reason is a mix of sagging revenue from lowered in-person attendance (which in the pandemic era has dropped about 40% since 2020), plus the strain on the mountain town’s infrastructure. The overwhelming complaint from locals is about traffic — but those interviewed also say the economic benefit outweighs a week of congested roads. 

Many cities (including San Francisco) jumped at the chance to host a festival that’s known for incubating young filmmakers (Oakland legend Boots Riley is an alum of their educational programs) and launching breakout indie hits (last year alone boasted “Will & Harper,” “My Old Ass” and Oscar front-runner “A Real Pain”). The finalists outside of Utah appear to be Boulder, Colorado, and Cincinnati. A third alternative would keep the festival in Utah, but move its headquarters to Salt Lake City while downsizing its presence in Park City.

“Our vision is two cities, one experience,” Lindsey Nikola, deputy chief of staff to the Salt Lake City Mayor, who has been working on Utah’s Sundance proposal, told SFGATE by phone. “It imagines the expansion of the festival in the state, which would give attendees that Park City, bespoke mountain experience they’ve come to treasure, while folding aspects of the festival into Salt Lake City in a way that meets some of the modern festival needs.”

Regardless of the outcome, it appears that Park City’s days as Sundance’s primary home are numbered, and the exodus will have a serious effect on the town. With a population of just 8,254, Park City received 72,840 visitors during Sundance 2024 (including about 24,200 from out of state), which resulted in $132 million in economic output, $13.8 million in tax revenue and $69.7 million in wage income for locals, plus an estimated 1,730 jobs. The festival is far from the only game in town when it comes to visitors — Park City claims the nation’s largest lift-served ski resort and hosts an international ski competition tour — but even so, Sundance accounts for about 45% of the county’s $291.5 million in tourist revenue.

“The first week after the festival we’ll be hosting the World Cup — Park City is used to hosting big events and we love all the visitors that come with them, but Sundance by far has the biggest impact on our city,” Mayor Nann Worel told SFGATE.

The festival transforms the town of Park City into a bubble of film industry activity. Screenings take place at six different theaters, plus two satellite locations in Salt Lake (about 40 minutes by car). Most of the corporate parties take place on Main Street, which is packed with luxury retailers, art galleries and pricey restaurants. But with the exception of the Egyptian Theatre on Main, the cinematic action is scattered throughout the town — at a high school auditorium, the library and an old-fashioned strip mall multiplex that’s home to a handful of restaurants. On a Friday afternoon, badge-wearing cinephiles packed into Park City Chinese & Thai, devouring plates of pad thai between movies. Jose Cruz, former owner of the restaurant, says this is the biggest week of the year.

“There are many restaurants and small businesses, the profit they make during Sundance is enough to pay for the entire year of rent — I’m not kidding,” Cruz told SFGATE by phone. “A lot of the servers and employees, it’s the same thing for them. Those 10, 11, 12 days, they make more than they do for the entire summer. I have employees who literally put 20, 30K in their pockets.”

In addition to getting customers into booths, the festival also supplies a huge income stream for businesses willing to rent out their spaces to brands. A gallerist at LIK Fine Art Park City said he was offered $180,000 for the week, and cited buyouts of between $100,000 and $150,000 for other neighboring galleries. Those private events are also big paydays for catering companies, working overtime to staff activations from brands like Chase and Acura.

“Most catering companies are stacking parties on top of parties in one day,” said Lindsey Baker, lead caterer for Done to Your Taste Catering. “They’re everywhere, all different ranges, from corporate to private houses to churches.” She also cited the broader ripple effects on other industries, ranging from T-shirt shops printing out promo swag to rental car companies to housekeeping staff and entertainers.

“There’s all kinds of more jobs, and they have lots of private parties to do — it’s a couple extra gigs,” said Bruce Christenson, a musician who performed along Main Street through Mountain Town Music, as well as at a private event at David K. Beavis Fine Art.

Then of course there’s the fact that people need a place to stay. The median home price in Park City has increased 114% since 2023 alone (rising to $2.68 million), with a one-bedroom apartment costing an average of $2,095 per month for rent (compared with $1,423 in Salt Lake City), according to Apartments.com. As a result, nearly all of the locals I met during my time at the festival lived outside of Park City proper. People visiting for the festival spend a total of about $38.7 million on lodging, much of which goes to Airbnb owners making a pretty penny (I paid $175 to sleep on the floor of a three-story condo, elbow-to-elbow with two other festival attendees). Airbnb hosts, while still able to rely on a steady stream of ski tourists, would also take a big hit.

“I know a lot of people on Main Street that rent out their spaces and it pays for the rent for the whole year,” said Baker.

That cost of lodging is just one of the many things that make Sundance a very expensive proposition — each attendee typically spends $4,517. For budding indie filmmakers, that’s a serious expense. Chelsea Christer, a filmmaker who lived in SF before decamping for LA in 2021, started attending the festival as a volunteer 15 years ago. This year marked her first time attending as a director, with the debut of her short film “Out for Delivery,” a dark comedy featuring Martin Starr that tells the story of a woman whose end-of-life care drugs get lost in the mail.

“It’s a shame that the festival is being squeezed out, but I get it. Now being on the other side from volunteer to filmmaker, having to find lodging and the price tags on it were shocking — it’s just more than the budget of our film,” Christer said (some return volunteers are offered free lodging, but most live locally, and some end up sleeping on the floor of the aforementioned condo).

Even so, the remote location of Park City and its long legacy are important parts of the appeal. There’s a historic weight to theaters like the Egyptian, which still boasts a priceless Banksy rat the street artist painted when his documentary premiered in 2010. Main Street, which was shut down to traffic for the first time this year, buzzes with attendees —you might just see Ayo Edebiri shivering in the cold before a film premiere. The incredible density of film industry talent leads to serendipitous meetups that wouldn’t happen in a bigger city like Boulder, Cincinnati or even Salt Lake (for example, I spotted Christer taking a meeting at Atticus Coffee & Teahouse).

“There’s something to being in a small, walkable, free-bus-system kind of town where you’re able to have that natural chaos theory of running into people you wouldn’t otherwise meet,” Christer said.

But according to longtime attendees, that density isn’t quite what it used to be. The number of films has been steadily dropping over time (from 128 features and 74 shorts in 2020, to 88 features and 57 shorts in 2025), as has the number of venues. Overall attendance has been falling steadily year over year, with overall attendance dropping 40% since the start of the pandemic (with a 45% decrease in out-of-state visitors). Salt Lake City Weekly arts and entertainment editor Scott Renshaw agrees that the fest hasn’t recovered from a COVID-19 slump.

“It’s absolutely contracted, and I think it was partly just financial necessity. They got hammered with the COVID years,” said Renshaw.

But even though the fest has shrunk, it still plays a huge part in the cultural landscape of the state.

“If you are among the progressives and arts-oriented people in this state, this is kind of a beacon … It allows for a sense of an oasis of progressive sanity. And I think that could really be something that takes a psychological hit for people who are more progressive-leaning Utahns,” he said.

Baker echoed this sentiment, noting that the locals-only screenings serve as an important way to introduce independent film to audiences that otherwise wouldn’t have access to more experimental fare like “Last Days in the Desert,” the Ewan McGregor film that she saw premiere at the fest in 2015.  

“It sparked my interest in that part of the culture out here, whereas before, it was just like, ‘Oh, Sundance is in town — traffic — let’s just avoid Park City,” Baker said, citing a common refrain from locals, albeit one that’s certainly lessened somewhat by a free public bus system.

Ultimately, everyone I spoke to over my week at the festival seemed sad about its impending departure and the hole it would leave in not just the economy, but the cultural landscape of the small town.

“To all those people who have the power to call the shots, I will say, please don’t leave,” Cruz said.