Sundance picks Colorado; Festival expected to have huge regional impact

BOULDER — The Sundance Film Festival — its leaders having decided last week to move the world-renowned event from Utah to Boulder — will make Colorado the epicenter of the movie universe for a week and half each winter for a decade beginning in 2027.

“I want to be very, very clear: While the Sundance Film Festival will be anchored in Boulder, we intend for its spirit to be felt throughout the state from Denver to Colorado Springs to Fort Collins and beyond,” Sundance Institute board chairman Ebs Burnough said during a Thursday gathering of state and local government, arts and business leaders held under the Boulder Theater marquis. “We are not here to show up just 10 days a year in one location.”

Boulder beat out Sundance’s long-time home of Park City, Utah, as well as Cincinnati — the two other finalists — for the right to host the festival founded more than four decades ago by Hollywood icon Robert Redford.

“We have profound appreciation for the finalist cities and their communities. … All of these places present overwhelmingly strong proposals and dedicated time, passion and commitment,” Burnough said. “… But there was something about Boulder.”

Sundance festival director Eugene Hernandez said that leaders with the Sundance Institute, the festival’s nonprofit organizing body, “envision the heart of this festival centered right here in downtown Boulder, utilizing a wide array of theaters and venues, and incorporating spaces all around Peal Street Mall. Nearby spaces will offer dedicated locations for our community to gather, including select spots on the University of Colorado Boulder campus.”

Venues in surrounding communities, such as the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, are also likely to host some Sundance events, and festival-goers are expected to spread their hospitality spending around hotels, restaurants and shops throughout the Front Range.

Among the parties that last year helped submit a response to a request for proposals, 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, the Boulder Chamber, the city, the University of Colorado, the Boulder Convention and Visitors Bureau and the Stanley Film Center at the Stanley Hotel.

The Colorado recruitment effort included a package of tax incentives designed to tip the scales in Boulder’s favor.

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.

House Bill 25-1005, which was introduced early in the 2025 Colorado legislative session and is expected to eventually pass, provides a framework for the Sundance organizers to receive tax breaks worth as much as $34 million over 10 years.

The 2023 Sundance Film Festival contributed more than $118 million to Utah’s economy, brought in more than 21,000 out-of-state visitors and created 1,608 jobs that paid Utah workers $63 million in wages, according to OEDIT.

“The economic benefit to the state over 10 years is projected to be over $2 billion dollars,” Gov. Jared Polis said. 

Beyond the economic boost, hosting Sundance is expected to heighten Colorado’s profile within the entertainment industry.

“Having the Sundance Film Festival reside in Boulder is going to put Boulder on the international cultural map,” Boulder Chamber CEO John Tayer said.

The Sundance Institute got a taste of what Colorado has to offer last May, when the Stanley hosted the Sundance Directors Lab program.

The Stanley Hotel was a fitting location for a high-profile Hollywood gathering, as the 116-year-old, 140-room hotel served as inspiration for Stephen King’s novel, “The Shining,” which became a horror-genre classic when it was adapted for the silver screen by director Stanley Kubrick.

The Stanley’s ownership group and Colorado officials have for months been engaged in a complicated transaction that, when complete, is expected to allow a state agency to take over the property and facilitate the completion of the long-planned but notoriously stubborn-to-build Stanley Film Center, which will celebrate the horror genre and could host future Sundance events.

Once complete, the center will be “a two-story building with approximately 64,735 square feet, to include an approximately 864-seat outdoor amphitheater with a fire capacity of 1,200 (including standing room), an event center, a film museum, a sound stage and related amenities, to be constructed adjacent to the main hotel building and connected to the concert hall,” according to state documents. The project also includes the addition of “more guest rooms and building a new guest entrance to take in more guests and further support the success of the film center.”

Blumhouse Productions LLC, the juggernaut production company behind horror films and franchises such as “Get Out,” “Five Nights at Freddy’s,” “The Purge” and “Paranormal Activity,” will serve as the film center’s exclusive exhibit curator.

The Sundance Film Festival, which has been hosted by Redford and the Sundance Institute every winter in Park City since the late 1970s, 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.

“This is the kind of place where a janitor at The Sink can become a star,” CU president Todd Saliman said of Boulder, which will welcome back Redford, that up-jumped janitor, along with his movie-star pals in a little less than two years.

“Over the next year and half, we’ve got much work to do,” Boulder city manager Nuria Rivera-Vandermyde said during Thursday event at the Boulder Theater. “I told my team, ‘Today we celebrate, but next week we’ve got a meeting (about Sundance) on the books.’ We’ve got a lot to do for 2027.”

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