Sundance Film Festival Is Moving to a New Home in 2027

Many decades of Utah state history will come to an end. After 40 years in Park City, Utah, the Sundance Film Festival will leave the snowy city for the excitement of Boulder, Colorado.

Big news! Sundance Film Festival reveals Boulder, Colorado, as our new location starting in 2027 and beyond. The annual event by the nonprofit Sundance Institute will continue to entertain and inspire audiences through independent film. We can’t wait to see you there!

Read… pic.twitter.com/KbjgO1JDNO

— Sundance Film Festival (@sundancefest) March 27, 2025

The Sundance Institute has reached a 10-year deal with Boulder, Colorado, beating out over 100 other cities across the U.S. Sundance will have one more festival in 2026 before moving East.

“Here in our state we celebrate the arts and film industry as a key economic driver, job creator, and important contributor to our thriving culture,” Colorado Governor Jared Polis wrote in a statement. “Now, with the addition of the iconic Sundance Film Festival, we can expect even more jobs, a huge benefit for our small businesses including stores and restaurants.”

For those who follow Sundance news religiously, this departure from its old stomping grounds has been a long time coming. But hopefully, this will be a step toward growth for Sundance and the film industry.

The Sundance Film Festival has been going on since the Sundance Institute started its annual event in August 1978. Since 1985, Park City has been Sundance’s home. However, last April, Deadline reported that Sundance was listening to pitches from other cities, looking at options from different cities across the nation.

In recent years, Sundance has faced many issues in Park City. For one, the COVID-19 pandemic forced them to make the festival either a hybrid/social distance event or entirely online for the festivals held in January 2021 and 2022. The film industry struggled to stay afloat during this time, and their way of thinking raised questions about what impact the pandemic would have on theatrically released films.

There is also the matter of Park City itself. Perhaps Sundance has grown too big for the little skiing town.

Spoke to so many Park City and Salt Lake locals this year at Sundance who were like, "I really hope the fest doesn't move, this is all we've got that's related to the arts."

Pouring one out for them rn https://t.co/3VIgVysqsY

— Andrew J. Salazar (@AndrewJ626) March 27, 2025

According to Variety, studio executives are frustrated with the rising costs of sending people to this small Summit County town. Not to mention the Park City residents have grown increasingly impatient with the influx of visitors who flood their town every January. The winter season is already a big time for tourism for Utah, because Park City gets a flush of people wanting to ride the winter slopes at the same time as Sundance.

But their new home of Boulder, Colorado, can handle the increasing density of this world-famous film festival. Boulder is a massive college town home, to the University of Colorado, with a total student population of roughly 32,000 and a general population of 105,898.

Boulder is no stranger to high-density events. A move to a larger city gives Sundance room for more venues, more guests, and, potentially, more films per year. Colorado state officials pitched that these newer, larger stomping grounds will make Sundance more accessible and affordable to a larger audience.

The board of the Sundance Institute is equally as ecstatic. According to CEO Amanda Kelso, Boulder checked all the boxes of what they were looking for. The town of Boulder is equally beautiful and practical.

“You can imagine walking from venue to venue, metabolizing  the film you just watched and communing with nature which is something Robert Redford felt so strongly about. When you think about a sense of place perspective, Boulder is a cool town, it’s an arts town. There are poets, musicians and filmmakers who live here. It’s a tech town. It’s also a college town,” she told Deadline, “And that creates an opportunity for us to think about audience development in a more expansive way.”

Sundance’s last festival in Park City will occur from January 22 through February 1, 2026.