As the 2034 edition of the Sundance Film Festival unfolds, Park City could be preparing for an even larger event that would open as soon as days later.
The Hollywood crowd may be departing as winter-sports fans are arriving.
Salt Lake City and the wider region this summer are expected to be awarded the 2034 Winter Olympics after the International Olympic Committee in late 2023 named the capital city as the preferred host of the Games of that year. If that occurs, there will be ramifications for the film festival in 2034. It is a decade away, but the scenario is one that Park City officials and the leadership of Sundance would address long before 2034 and as soon as this year, while City Hall and Sundance consider the long-term future of the festival.
Sundance is held in the second half of January, while the Winter Olympics start in early February. There would likely be a desire for additional separation between the close of Sundance and the start of the Winter Olympics to allow the municipal government, Games organizers, sponsors and others to finalize preparations. The various Sundance venues across the Park City area would need to be dismantled to allow the Winter Olympic-related crews to finish their own work, since some locations would be part of the map for both events.
The same scenario occurred during Sundance in 2002 with the Winter Olympics nearing. Sundance that year moved up its starting date by a week to accommodate the Games, and the festival was staged amid the final push to ready the community for the Winter Olympics. There was Games-related construction ongoing alongside the work to ready the community for Sundance, and it continued as the festival itself was staged.
The organizing committee that put on the Games needed to continue its work at the venues through the Sundance dates, security planners remained busy readying for a Winter Olympics that would be held in the months after the Sept. 11 attacks, and businesses served the Sundance crowds even as they positioned themselves for the even larger numbers of people who would arrive for the Games, as examples.
There were three major competition venues in the Park City area during the Winter Olympics — Park City Mountain, Deer Valley Resort and the Utah Olympic Park. The same three locations have been identified on the concept map for a second Games. Main Street would be expected to be the center of the celebration in Park City, as was the case in 2002, and the Park City area would be critical to the transportation system for a Games. The preparations would encompass a wide swath of the Park City area, in some ways similar to the footprint of Sundance.
Park City leaders have held a series of discussions about the Winter Olympic bid, but the talks have been broad in nature. In the time after the International Olympic Committee awards the Games of 2034, officials at City Hall, the County Courthouse and elsewhere will begin holding more detailed talks about topics like budgeting, staffing, timelines and capital improvements that could benefit from monies that would flow into the state in the time before a Games.
The status of Sundance in 2034 would likely be a peripheral issue in the discussions about the Winter Olympics, but it is one that could be settled early. Sundance is conducting a broad review of the future of the festival as it considers a new vision. The current agreement between City Hall and Sundance covers festivals through 2026. There are automatic annual renewals starting in 2027 unless either of the sides provides a two-year written notice by March 1 of any year.
Park City leaders last year agreed to allow the March 1 deadline in 2024 to be pushed back to Oct. 1. Sundance after the close of the festival will have approximately eight months before the Oct. 1 deadline to weigh options.
The Winter Olympics of 2034 will have been awarded by the Oct. 1 deadline involving Sundance, meaning the Games could be addressed in any formal agreement between City Hall and Sundance regarding the long-term future of the festival.
There could be clarity at that point about when the Hollywood crowds will arrive in January 2034, as well as when they will depart to make room for the crowds of winter-sports fans coming to Park City shortly afterward.