Sundance Film Festival ditches Utah for Boulder, Colorado 

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• Benjamin Wood
• The Sundance Film Festival announced Wednesday that it will leaving Utah for Boulder, Colorado, in 2027.

The decades-long relationship between Utah and the Sundance Film Festival will come to an end in 2026, with the nation's premiere showcase for independent film opting to rebuild itself anew in Boulder, Colorado, beginning in 2027.

In a press announcement released Wednesday, Festival organizers noted Boulder's "small-town charm" and "vibrant arts scene," emphasizing the Colorado city's pedestrian-oriented downtown district where Sundance intends to make use of a walkable cluster of historic and traditional venues to host its event.

“Boulder is an art town, tech town, mountain town, and college town. It is a place where the Festival can build and flourish," Amanda Kelso, acting CEO of the Sundance Institute, said in a prepared statement. "This is the beginning of a bold, new journey as we invite everyone to be part of our community and to be entertained and inspired. We can’t imagine a better fit than Boulder.”

And Robert Redford, who founded Sundance in Utah in 1981 but stepped back from its operation several years ago, said in a prepared statement that "words cannot express" the gratitude he feels for Park City and the state of Utah in helping to support and grow the organization.

"What we've created is remarkably special and defining. As change is inevitable, we must always evolve and grow, which has been at the core of our survival," Redford said. "This move will ensure that the Festival continues its work of risk taking, supporting innovative storytellers, fostering independence, and entertaining and enlightening audiences. I am grateful to the Boulder community for its support, and I look forward to seeing what the future holds for the Festival there.”

Boulder was among three finalists vying to host the festival—along with a joint bid from Salt Lake City/Park City—after Sundance leadership announced they were looking into new proposals at the end of their current contract with Utah. And while the Beehive State was seen as the front runner to retain the event, the threat of departure hung over the 2025 edition in January and controversial actions by the Utah Legislature generated some suggestions that Sundance had tired of the state's far-right social politics.

Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall, Park City Mayor Nann Worel and Utah Film Commission Director Virginia Pearce issued a joint response on Wednesday, saying they were disappointed by Sundance's decision, but grateful for the "lasting impact" the festival has had on the community.

"We remain committed to fostering the arts right here in Utah, where the spirit of storytelling will always thrive," they said.

Park City and Salt Lake City had begun to make headway on some of factors noted in the festival's Boulder announcement. The most commonly-sited issue with hosting the festival in Park City has been the impact on traffic and hotel accommodations—particularly as the ski industry has taken on a greater and greater role during the winter months on the Wasatch Front—with a free transit and shuttle system between screening venues frequently trapped in gridlock.

In 2025, Park City began experimenting with the pedestrianization of its Main Street during the festival. And new bus-only space on the area's surface highways and a free connector route to Salt Lake City has helped to improve the reliability of transit-based Sundance guests.

But Park City locals have aggressively fought against pedestrianization of Main Street, while plans to properly bolster transit service along UDOT corridors are still years, if not decades, away and are targeted only at minimal operation improvements, far short of the transformational vision that the area's tourism and recreational economy would justify.

Utah's bid to keep the festival would have gotten around these pinch points by shifting the bulk of the Sundance footprint to Salt Lake City, where Trax light rail and tens of thousands of hotel rooms in the walkable downtown core make it more feasible to absorb the impact of an international event.

But Salt Lake City has also seen its plans to bolster a walkable "small town" feel thwarted by prominent business owners who have impeded the pedestrianization of Main Street and, more recently, collaborated with state lawmakers to preemptively ban the city's ability to reduce the space afforded to drivers on city streets.

In her own statement, Worel went on to say that Park City had put its "heart and soul" into finding a way to keep Sundance in Utah.

"Frankly, I don’t know if there is anything else we could have done," Worel said.