Packed venues and Main Street restaurants filled to the rafters are a typical Sundance sight. What’s not as typical a sight are the businesses and services around town that make film festival week possible. Emergency rooms and liquor retailers. Towing companies and house cleaners. Behind the scenes, Park City is pulling a double shift for the Sundance Film Festival.
Emergency Room
With an additional 50,000 people in town, Park City Medical Center spokesperson Amy Roberts said the Emergency Room staff have to stay on their toes. The doctors and nurses have been running drills to prepare. Complete with actors to fill the parts of incoming patients, scenarios from massive earthquakes to Interstate closures were covered. ER staff is doubled and waiting.
“Shenanigans in town often end up in our ER,” Roberts said. “It may be disorderly conduct or bar fights. We even see an increase in worker’s comp claims because staff is so busy trying to get food out. They break glasses or cut themselves. Everything goes back to how fast everyone is moving to keep up with usiness.”
But those aren’t the most common injuries. The most common injuries aren’t very flashy, Roberts said, rather most injuries are just people not prepared for a Rocky Mountain Winter.
“We see a lot of slips and falls,” Roberts said, “usually from people in high heels walking on icy conditions.”
“There are also a lot of flu-type symptoms where someone might have a small bug and the altitude here exacerbates it,” she added.
Many out-of-towners develop acute mountain sickness because they are not properly hydrated. Park City also has more slow speed car accidents, and for reasons Roberts couldn’t quite pinpoint, more food sickness.
“I do know we have less ski injuries,” she said, “because less people are skiing and more are going to the movies.”
Sanitation
Allied Waste, the waste collection service for Summit County, has their hands full with all the garbage the crowds will create on top what Park City usually produces. General manager Reece DeMille said 25 extra dumpsters have been added to the city to keep up.
“We put out bigger dumpsters, extra dumpsters,” DeMille said. “We pick up earlier. Wherever there are films, wherever people are going to be we have to be vigilant.”
More pick-up services — in some cases double or triple the amount — are also added in meet demands.
Liquor Sales
Keeping restaurants and bars fully stocked for Sundance means keeping shipments up through the week, said Bob Zdunich, the Utah Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control interim deputy director.
January is the busiest month for the club store, where businesses pick up liquor.
“It’s because of the Sundance Film Festival,” Zdunich said.
In the single Park City Club Store, the DABC pulled in $1.7 million for January in 2011. February, a month with one of the biggest ski holidays in the country, pulled in $600,000 less the same year.
Towing
Brad Belcher of Park City Towing said the number of calls they receive from private properties asking for a tow of an illegally parked cars doubles during the festival.
“If it’s apartment complexes, retail outlets or assigned spots,” Belcher said. “I guarantee people will park there.”
“And no one is ever happy to find out they’ve been towed,” he said.
Most tow requests come from private property owners, but a few will also be called in by police. Park City Police Captain Phil Kirk said it is a yearly issue this time of year.
“There might not be a lot of convenient parking,” Kirk said, “and invariably we get people parking in the wrong place.”
While police tend to ticket before they call for a tow, that’s not true for every scenario. If a driveway is blocked or police feel the car is parked dangerously, a tow truck will be sent out.
“Sometimes people just get reckless,” he added.
Whether it’s a bandage or a bottle of pinot noir, more people means more businesses. With more business comes more work, a fact Park City knows firsthand.