Utah is trying really hard to keep Sundance, even if it's not in Park City

The Sundance Film Festival is flirting with other cities, but Utah isn’t ready to let go. This summer, the Sundance Institute selection committee traveled to hear 2027 festival proposals from six places: Atlanta, Cincinnati, Louisville, Boulder, Santa Fe, and finally, back to Utah. Utah Film Commission director Virginia Pearce, herself an alum of the Sundance Institute, acknowledged to Deadline the need to “reimagine” the festival, so the state’s proposal is to move the main event to Salt Lake City with certain satellite events occurring in Park City to maintain tradition. 

“I just think, why would you uproot a festival with such deep roots here?” Pearce said to the outlet in a new interview. “You know, 67% of their attendees are Utah based. I would hate for them to have to start over with all of that. I think we’ve grown up together. They’ve created a really amazing audience of very educated, sophisticated film watchers, now all year round. So, you know, I hope that they can see that that’s another value add that we have.”

Among the “value adds” is Salt Lake’s proximity to the film industry in Los Angeles, the money and infrastructure the state already has built-in from hosting the festival for almost 50 years, and more space for both festival events and lodgings. “If they moved staff lodging, the lodging that they pay for, and moved everything to Salt Lake, they’d save over a million dollars,” according to studies Pearce’s office has done. 

The film industry in general and festivals specifically are struggling post-COVID, but Pearce is confident Utah can meet Sundance’s needs. (“I’m not sure it’s ever going to be a huge money maker, but it should not be a money loss,” she told Deadline.) What’s unclear is how exactly Sundance is looking to evolve: “I haven’t seen a ton of structure or strategy from them, as far as what the future looks like,” Pearce said. “But depending on what that future is, I’m sure we can have conversations about growing our support as well.”

And if it doesn’t go there way? “It will be culturally sad, and deep and devastating for them to leave and for us to lose Sundance. But we’re a thriving city that’s doing a lot of things,” she said. “We’re hosting Olympics in 10 years. It’s not as if you know this is the only thing that we’re doing.” You can read the full interview here.