Arts & Entertainment  January 29, 2025

Sundance supporters win over legislative committee

DENVER — A bill that would provide tax incentives aimed at luring the Sundance Film Festival to Boulder won a favorable recommendation Wednesday from the Colorado House Business Affairs and Labor Committee, moving House Bill 25-1005 forward to a future hearing in the House Finance Committee.

Boulder business and government leaders — along with some of their state-level peers — made the cultural and economic case for using tax credits to entice the world-renowned movie festival to choose Boulder over the two other finalist cities, finding a mostly receptive audience among the legislative committee members.

Cincinnati and Salt Lake City/Park City, Utah, the festival’s long-time home city, also are in consideration to host the event for a decade beginning in 2027. A final decision on the event’s new home is expected after the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, which is going on now through Feb. 2. The looming decision for the Sundance Institute, a nonprofit organization led by Hollywood icon Robert Redford that organizes the festival, likely played a role in HB 25-1005’s introduction and committee debut occurring early in Colorado’s legislative session.

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The incentives included in HB 25-1005, represent a “specific opportunity to secure for Colorado the privilege of hosting one of the world’s landmark cultural attractions,” Boulder Chamber CEO John Tayer said.

While the text of the bill does not mention Sundance by name, HB 25-1005 specifies that the bulk of the proposed tax incentives — as much as $34 million over 10 years — would be available only to a “global film festival” with a “multi-decade operating history and a verifiable track record of attracting 100,000 or more in-person ticket sales and over 10,000 out-of-state and international attendees …” Sundance is the only event that meets that criteria and is considering a move to Colorado. 

“Ohio and Utah are also putting a lot of incentives out to try to get this festival,” said Rep. Brianna Titone, D-Arvada. “That tells you that there’s real value in” bringing Sundance to the Centennial State.

Tayer said that an economic analysis shows that the 2024 Sundance Film Festival “generated $132 million in economic activity. This includes $13.8 million in tax revenue and $69.7 million in wages and 1,730 jobs, attracting 72,840 unique in person attendees,” about a third of which came from out of state. 

Those out-of-towners “accounted for the lion’s share of the economic impact, spending an estimated $106.4 million,” Tayer said. “That means millions and spending on hotels, restaurants, retail (and) stores” in Boulder and throughout the region during January, normally a slow time for Front Range tourism.

Colorado is home to a host of existing film festivals — the Telluride Film Festival, Boulder International Film Festival and Denver Film Festival, for example — but none are nearly as large or as prestigious as Sundance. 

Sundance’s presence in the “would only bolster and grow the investment in these festivals and the arts and the film industry,” Boulder City Councilmember Matt Benjamin said. 

Under HB 25-1005, smaller film festivals would be eligible for up to $5 million in tax breaks over 10 years.

Rep. Bob Marshall, D-Highlands Ranch, was the lone House Business Affairs and Labor Committee member who declined to support the tax incentives offer.

“The best way to have a good business environment is to have a good business environment,” he said, “not giving out subsidies.”

Boulder is likely to “see most of the (economic) impact, and should pay for it” by offering more generous local incentives, Marshall said.

The Sundance Film Festival, which has been hosted by Redford and the Sundance Institute every winter in Park City for the past four decades, brings together thousands of film-lovers, filmmakers and celebrities to celebrate cinema and uplift artists.

Redford is no stranger to Boulder, having attended the University of Colorado for a year in the 1950s, during which he worked as a janitor at The Sink, an iconic restaurant in Boulder’s University Hill district. His son Jamie and daughter Shauna both graduated from CU, from which Redford received an honorary degree in 1987.

Boulder’s push to land the festival has garnered support from organizations throughout the Boulder Valley, Northern Colorado and beyond.

Among the parties that last year helped submit a response to a request for proposal, or RFP, to Sundance on behalf of Boulder are the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade, the Colorado Office of Film Television and Media, Boulder Chamber, the city, the University of Colorado, the Boulder Convention and Visitors Bureau and the Stanley Film Center at the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park.

In support of the Boulder RFP, the Colorado Economic Development Commission last year approved $1.5 million in state incentives from the EDC’s strategic fund to help lure the festival.

A bill that would provide tax incentives aimed at luring the Sundance Film Festival to Boulder won a favorable recommendation from the Colorado House Business Affairs and Labor Committee.

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A Maryland native, Lucas has worked at news agencies from Wyoming to South Carolina before putting roots down in Colorado.
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