Sundance Selects 15 Cities To Make Bids For Festival’s Potential Move; Park City & Utah Pledge “Team Effort” To Keep Festival
22.05.2024 - 22:09
/ deadline.com
EXCLUSIVE: The Sundance Film Festival is looking South for a potential new home, as well as in its backyard.
Along with Park City, UT, Atlanta and fellow Georgia cities Athens and Savannah are among the 15 cities that have made the cut to put in serious bids for the Robert Redford-founded indie gathering.
First reported exclusively by Deadline last year as a player to snag Sundance, New Mexico’s Santa Fe is also in the running in the Request for Proposal process. Across the rest of the nation, San Francisco is a contender to be the new home of the SFF come 2027 as are jurisdictions in upstate New York and North Carolina, I hear.
Representatives for Sundance did not respond to request for comment from Deadline on the final 15 and where things stand now. If and when they do, this post will be update. However, one festival insider did tell Deadline that “this is a pageant, and host committees are reaching out, looking for an angle and way in.”
“It will come down to money and venues, but mainly money,” he added.
Having been in and around Park City for four decades, Sundance currently has a contract with the resort town to see it through the 2025 fest and the 2026 SFF.
There is a school of thought that Sundance doesn’t really want to leave its long-time home.
The opinion expressed to Deadline by various sources in Park City, Hollywood and elsewhere is that instead the festival is seeking a better deal that addresses the issues of growth and change, both in the overall industry and the festival itself, that have plagued Sundance in the last few years. This year saw fewer films, less venues and a decline in attendance for SFF, with visitors and locals alike complaining Park City was too expensive, too crowed and many of