The Sundance Film Festival attendance in January 2002 suffered as the final preparations were underway for the Winter Olympics the next month.
According to Sundance, the attendance in 2002 was 20,435, a drop of nearly 2,100 people from 2001.
There were a variety of reasons for the drop mentioned at the time. The festival was moved up by a week to further separate the closing of Sundance from the opening of the Games, which likely impacted travel plans for some since the festival started soon after the holidays. There were also travel jitters in the months after the September 11 attacks.
And some were unsure if Park City could accommodate the regular level of Sundance crowds with the Games starting so soon afterward and with so much Olympic-related work occurring. Economic uncertainty at that moment also undoubtedly played a role in dampening attendance at the film festival.
The attendance began to recover in 2003, when 38,707 people were at Sundance.