After over 40 years, the Sundance Film Festival has had its last hurrah in Park City, Utah, this week. The yearly film festival is arguably the country’s premier event for independent filmmakers, drawing nearly 100 feature films every year that often snag major distribution deals (the SF-set film “The Invite” reportedly just sold for over $10 million). In 2025, the festival attracted 85,472 attendees, an increase of 17% year over year. But come 2027, those attendees — and the $196.1 million they spent — will be heading elsewhere.

To the dismay of many Park City residents, the festival decided last year that it would be packing its bags for Boulder, Colorado. That came after a competitive bidding process, of which a joint bid from Salt Lake City and Park City was a finalist (the other finalist was Cincinnati). The move will mean an end to an endearing tradition that’s become synonymous with the small Utah ski town and a boon for many local businesses.

However, according to the mayor, Park City isn’t as concerned as one might think.

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Channing Tatum attends the “Josephine” premiere during the 2026 Sundance Film Festival at Eccles Center Theater on Jan. 23, 2026, in Park City, Utah.

“I wouldn’t say [it’s] crushing. We made our best effort to keep it, but we’ve also had Sundance around in town long enough that we know Sundance’s challenges really well,” Mayor Ryan Dickey told SFGATE.

Dickey, himself a longtime attendee of the festival, says the city is not worried about a budget shortfall, or considering cutting any services. Even if Sundance chose to stay in Utah, the state’s proposal was to move the festival’s epicenter to Salt Lake City, using Park City as a satellite site for special events (currently Salt Lake City hosts some screenings, but seldom has premieres). The state proposed a free bus service running every 30 minutes, 18 hours a day to help bridge the gap between the two cities.

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“Even in trying to keep Sundance, it wasn’t, ‘Hey, stay here and do the same thing over and over again.’ We proposed a really different festival. Our bid was to keep it in partnership with Salt Lake,” he said.

Utah reportedly offered Sundance over $12 million annually in cash and in-kind contributions to incentivize the festival to stay in the state, plus $10 million in private donations. However, Park City Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Jennifer Wesselhoff told NPR affiliate KDCW that many components of the bid required application through a grant process, compared to Colorado’s guaranteed offerings. 

FILE: Skiers sit in a chairlift on March, 2, 2015, in Park City, Utah.

Colorado’s bid included $34 million in incentives over the next 10 years, plus another $34 million in state tax credits. The package included $150,000 in renewable energy credits, $355,000 for free buses and 5,000 e-bike........

© SFGate