The traditional spring shoulder season, a time when the Park City tourism industry is often at its slowest point, typically starts at the close of the ski season.
In 2024, it appears, the shoulder season will likely end during the first weekend of June. A Park City Trail Series five-kilometer race is scheduled on Saturday, June 1. The next day is the first Park Silly Sunday Market of the season, likely making that weekend an attractive time for people to visit should the weather be nice. By the following week, Park City is expected to have fully entered the summer-tourism season, which has, over the years, become busier and more lucrative.
Park City officials have crafted a calendar of special events that are scheduled in the community through the end of February of 2025. The calendar was forwarded to Mayor Nann Worel and the Park City Council as the elected officials and City Hall staffers prepared for a meeting that was held on Thursday. The discussion was designed as an update regarding special events, but the calendar was an especially interesting part of the materials that were drafted for Thursday.
The elected officials did not spend extensive time on the calendar itself on Thursday even as the month-by-month listing of the upcoming events is important at the staff level at the Marsac Building as well as in the wider community. The calendar of special events essentially provides Parkites and businesses with an outline of potentially busy days and stretches during the summer, the fall and into the next winter. Businesses could find the calendar useful, as an example, as they consider staffing levels at certain times.
“Our planning process is essential to producing successful events and creating predictability and a balanced approach to the 2024 event calendar,” Jenny Diersen, the economic development program manager at City Hall and one of the key staffers in managing special events, said in a report that was drafted in anticipation of the meeting.
The report indicated that City Hall, by the time of the report’s drafting, had received 61 pre-event applications in 2024, which, according to Diersen, is “typical for this time of year.” She said in the report additional applications for events are usually filed later in the year. The tally of 61 is down from 78 in 2023 and 71 the year before.
“In summary, we are back on track with trends we saw before the pandemic,” she said in the report.
Business during the summer-tourism season continues to trail the ski season, but it can be solid nonetheless. The various cultural events and festivals draw people from outside of Utah as well as day-tripping Utahns while recreational pursuits like mountain biking and hiking also attract crowds in the summer and fall. The lodging, restaurant and retail industries have generally enjoyed increasing numbers in the summer and fall over the years. Tourism increases in the summer, though, have led to additional traffic and crowds during a time of year that once was significantly slower than nowadays.
The calendar released by City Hall covers large, well-known special events that bring community-wide impacts alongside a series of smaller ones that generally cause few issues.
Some of the highlights of the calendar include the following:
• Saturday, May 18: the Running with Ed relay race that benefits the Park City Education Foundation.
• Saturday, June 22: the Savor the Summit dinner event on the Main Street blacktop.
• Thursday, July 4: the annual Independence Day celebration.
• Thursday, July 25-Saturday, July 27: the Park City Extreme Cup soccer tournament, with locations across the Park City area.
• Friday, Aug. 2-Sunday, Aug. 4: the Park City Kimball Arts Festival on Main Street.
• Thursday, Aug. 15-Saturday, Aug. 17: the Park City Song Summit, which was held at various locations in the Park City area in 2023.
• Monday, Sept. 2: the Miners Day celebrations, held on Labor Day.
• Thursday, Oct. 31: the Halloween on Main Street celebration.
• Thursday, Jan. 23-Sunday, Feb. 2: the Sundance Film Festival
• Thursday, Feb. 6-Saturday, Feb. 8: World Cup freestyle competitions at Deer Valley Resort.