The cancellation of the in-person Sundance Film Festival will undoubtedly dim the lights on January’s economic numbers in Park City, but a tourism official explained this week it is not time to roll the credits on the winter.
Sundance organizers on Wednesday announced the festival will not be held as a live event in Park City, indicating concern about the novel coronavirus pandemic and the rising number of cases of the omicron variant of the sickness. The festival will instead be held online, as was the case in 2021, rather than the hybrid of live and online that had been planned later this month.
Sundance is typically an especially lucrative stretch for the Park City-area economy. The lodging, restaurant and transportation sectors are among those that enjoy strong numbers, believed to be some of the best of the year, during Sundance.
The cancellation is expected to eliminate tens of millions of dollars of economic impact in Park City, surrounding Summit County and the wider region of northern Utah. It seemed unlikely with the coronavirus spreading the numbers would have approached those tallied in pre-pandemic editions of Sundance, but the festival was expected to draw crowds large enough to noticeably push up economic activity.
Jennifer Wesselhoff, the president and CEO of the Park City Chamber/Bureau, on Wednesday said in a written response to a Park Record inquiry the organization supports the decision by Sundance, explaining “Sundance is looking out for the best interests of the entire Park City community. With Omicron infection rates projected to peak during the dates of the festival, it was a difficult but responsible decision to move the festival from a hybrid format to fully virtual.”
Wesselhoff, though, acknowledged there will be a hit to business, saying “negative impacts to the city, county, and state economies will be significant.”
“These impacts will be felt at almost every level of our community — from decreased jobs, decreased visitor spending, lodging cancellations, decreased rental income for merchants on Main Street to major decreases in state and local taxes which contribute to our quality of life and services,” she said.
Wesselhoff said the tourism industry should expect numbers during Sundance that resemble those during “an average week in early February — rather than the big spike we would normally see this time of year from the event.”
She said there is an opportunity for the tourism industry to attract visitors during the Sundance dates who otherwise would have opted not to travel to Park City with the community crowded with festival-goers. She said Park City’s recreation offerings continue to draw people even as the coronavirus numbers increase. Any bump in tourism as a result of the cancellation would not generate numbers like those of Sundance, though, she said.
“At this point in time, with the level of interest in Park City and outdoor winter activities, along with the positive levels of visitation over the last month, we have some hope that we can pick up some of the loss from leisure visitors, but that will only bridge some of the gap,” Wesselhoff said.
The loss of the in-person festival occurred toward the midpoint of a ski season that had shown strength even with a warm, dry start to the winter that forced the delay of the opening of Park City Mountain Resort. There are important stretches of the ski season in the period after Sundance, including the normally busy Presidents Day weekend in February and the spring-break weeks in March.
The Park City tourism industry in the 2020-2021 ski season, the first full one of the pandemic, exhibited unexpected strength in the two months after Sundance canceled the in-person event. The economic numbers in January of 2021, when Sundance was held online, dropped sharply but were still better than expected as the ski industry made up for some of the losses from the cancellation of the in-person Sundance. Skiers and snowboarders flocked to Park City the rest of the winter as they sought outside activities amid the devastating months of the pandemic.
The Chamber/Bureau recognizes there is the possibility of a sequel this winter. Wesselhoff said the organization “put forth substantial efforts — both financial and creative — behind this year’s marketing program” and is promoting Park City “to people who are inclined to take winter vacations in our drive markets within a 600-mile radius.”
“More snow, more open terrain, and a decline in Covid cases will all contribute to our recovery. The loss of the in-person portion of the Sundance Film Festival will have a significant negative economic impact on our community, but keep in mind that Sundance represents only 10 days of the 120+ days that we rely on winter visitors to keep our economy humming,” she said.