Sundance Film Festival: the move to Boulder, explained
The Sundance Film Festival is an independent film festival founded by Robert Redford and the Sundance Institute, held every January since 1985 in Park City, Utah. Starting with its 2027 edition, the festival is relocating to Boulder, Colorado, running January 21 to 31, 2027. This page explains what stayed the same, what changed, and where to find the visitor planning details for the new Boulder location.
What the festival is
Sundance is one of the largest showcases for independent film in the world, screening dramatic and documentary features, shorts, and new-media work across roughly ten days each January. It runs alongside an industry marketplace where distributors buy films, making it a launch point for a large share of each year’s award-season documentaries and breakout indie dramas.
Why the festival left Park City
Sundance Institute ran a public site-selection process before choosing Boulder, weighing venue capacity, hotel inventory, air access, and long-term costs against other finalist cities. The Institute’s own announcements are the authoritative record of that decision and its reasoning; we link to them below rather than restate secondhand summaries.
What changes with the move to Boulder
| Factor | Park City (historical) | Boulder (2027 onward) |
|---|---|---|
| Setting | Ski resort town, mountain terrain | College town at the base of the Flatirons, home to CU Boulder |
| Nearest major airport | Salt Lake City International (SLC) | Denver International (DEN) |
| Venue layout | Spread across Park City, Salt Lake City, and Sundance Resort | Concentrated within roughly a two-mile downtown and CU Boulder campus footprint |
| Elevation and climate | ~6,900 ft, heavy mountain snow common | ~5,430 ft, drier front-range climate with occasional snow |
Start planning
The rest of this site is organized around the questions that actually decide a trip: where to stay relative to the venues, whether you need a car, what tickets will cost once prices are published, and what the venues themselves are like. Start with the 2027 Boulder guide for the full breakdown, or jump straight to where to stay, getting around, or tickets.