Sundance 2027 Names an Eighth Venue: The Dairy Arts Center Will Host New Frontier’s Return
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Sundance Institute has confirmed an eighth Boulder venue for the 2027 festival: the Dairy Arts Center, a multidisciplinary arts hub built inside a former milk processing plant. Its Boedecker Theater will serve as a screening venue, and the Dairy will be the primary home for New Frontier, the boundary pushing program returning after a two year pause. This comes directly from a Sundance Institute blog post, so it is Confirmed rather than press speculation.
Last verified: September 17, 2026
What Sundance Institute has confirmed
| Detail | Status |
|---|---|
| Dairy Arts Center added as an official 2027 festival venue | Confirmed |
| The Dairy is the primary home for New Frontier’s return | Confirmed |
| Boedecker Theater is the Dairy’s primary cinema, roughly 40% documentaries in regular programming | Confirmed |
| Address: 2590 Walnut Street (26th & Walnut), Boulder, with free lots on the west and north sides | Confirmed |
| Which specific films or events land at the Dairy in January | Pending, full lineup due December 2026 |
Sundance Institute’s own venue writeup traces the Dairy’s history back to a milk processing facility abandoned in the 1980s, later reimagined by local artists, including an experimental filmmaker, as a home where people could live, create, perform, and show work under one roof. Today the building hosts roughly 150 organizations a year across film, visual art, dance, music, and theater, and one arts leader quoted by Sundance called it Boulder’s Grand Central Station for the arts.
The Boedecker Theater, described as the Dairy’s intimate cinema, already runs weekly rotating films year round, with documentaries making up about 40 percent of its regular slate and stories from more than 85 countries having played on its screen. Two existing public programs there, an interactive series called How to Watch a Movie that walks through cinematography, editing, acting, and directing, and a monthly Cinema Club screening followed by group discussion, will continue alongside whatever festival-specific slate lands there in January.
Why it matters
New Frontier’s return was already confirmed as part of the festival’s broader programming expansion, but Sundance had not previously said where in Boulder it would actually live. Knowing the Dairy is that home matters if you are planning which part of town to base a day around: it sits apart from the Pearl Street and CU Boulder clusters covered in our rundown of the festival’s other official venues, so factor in a short drive or transit connection if you are hopping between screenings there and elsewhere. For the full context on what New Frontier’s comeback and the wider competition expansion actually involve, see our breakdown of Sundance 2027’s lineup expansion, and check the complete list of confirmed theaters on our Sundance 2027 Boulder venues guide.
What we’re watching
We’re watching for Sundance Institute’s December 2026 lineup announcement to confirm exactly which films, talks, or New Frontier installations are scheduled at the Dairy, and for word on whether the Dairy’s regular Cinema Club and How to Watch a Movie programming continues on its normal calendar during the festival’s ten days.
