The Sundance Movie Pageant is formally coming to Boulder.
The Sundance Institute introduced Thursday that it had chosen Boulder to host the well-known 10-day movie pageant for 10 years starting in 2027.
A slow-burn competitors for the pageant started in earnest final April, when the Sundance Institute, which owns the pageant and runs a dozen workshops for filmmakers, put out a request for info. Boulder responded, and submitted a proper proposal in June.
Boulder’s request included a one-time, $1.5 million grant, $250,000 from the Colorado Workplace of Movie, TV and Media over 5 years, and one-time contributions of $50,000 from the Colorado Tourism Workplace and $25,000 from Colorado Artistic Industries.
Home Invoice 1005, which continues to be being thought-about by lawmakers, would add $34 million in tax incentives to the massive pile of grants.
As compared, Utah allotted someplace between $1.3 million and $2 million per yr to maintain the pageant in Park Metropolis.
Boulder beat out proposals from Atlanta, Cincinnati, Louisville, Kentucky, and Santa Fe, and a mixed proposal from Park Metropolis and Salt Lake Metropolis to start out internet hosting the pageant in 2027.
“Boulder affords small-town attraction with an engaged neighborhood, distinctive pure magnificence, and a vibrant arts scene, making it the best location for the Pageant to develop,” Amanda Kelso, Sundance Institute’s performing CEO, mentioned in an emailed assertion. “That is the start of a daring, new journey as we invite everybody to be a part of our neighborhood and to be entertained and impressed. We will’t think about a greater match than Boulder.”
Colorado goes all in
Colorado has been vying for the pageant for years.
In 2023 the Stanley Resort in Estes Park landed the Sundance Institute Director’s Lab, an invitation-only program the place screenwriters and administrators hash out their massive concepts — digging into scripts, rehearsing, capturing and enhancing scenes.
On the time, officers had been tight-lipped about whether or not this was a technique to lure the movie pageant to the Rockies from the Wasatch. However the hypothesis gained traction when then-Sundance Institute CEO Joana Vicente mentioned on a podcast that there are challenges with internet hosting greater than 100,000 guests on the pageant in a busy ski city in January.
January in Boulder, alternatively, is a time of comparatively low occupancy and visitorship, in accordance with the Colorado Tourism Workplace. The pageant is projected to deliver round 40,000 to 50,000 guests to the Entrance Vary.
The tax incentive invoice within the legislature creates a brand new tax credit score “provided that no less than one certified movie pageant with a multi-decade working historical past and a verifiable observe report of attracting 100,000 or extra in-person ticket gross sales and over 10,000 out-of-state and worldwide attendees (international movie pageant) commences the relocation of the pageant to Colorado by January 1, 2026.”
Few different movie festivals qualify, and none apart from Sundance had been eyeing a brand new residence in Colorado.
A homegrown Hollywood
Colorado has spent the previous few years build up a movie trade that may compete with neighboring states. And that’s precisely what Hollywood desires.
Tax incentives modified the best way that film and TV productions picked out their filming places starting in 2002, when Louisiana ramped up its credit score program and began pulling in film productions from the East and West coasts. That comparative — and aggressive — angle has been utilized by the movie trade to pit close by states in opposition to each other: Texas versus Oklahoma, New York versus New Jersey, Utah versus Colorado.
The concept is that motion pictures and TV exhibits require lots of people, and folks spend cash on locations to remain, to eat, to buy. Locals is likely to be contracted for development or catering. Aspiring filmmakers can rub shoulders with trade elite. In brief, it’s an trade recognized for creating new worlds — and that potential extends past the set.
Final yr — across the similar time that Boulder submitted its Sundance proposal — the state expanded its tax incentive credit score for movie, TV and business productions to $5 million per yr for 4 years to attempt to lure extra filmmakers to work in Colorado.
Although the motivation is nowhere close to the $118 million New Mexico expects to pay out this yr in tax incentives, the increase to Colorado’s program makes the state aggressive with Wyoming and Utah. All 4 states presently host some a part of the Sundance Institute’s expansive programming — with the Administrators Lab in Estes Park, the Native Lab in New Mexico, the Producers Lab in Wyoming and, after all, the pageant in Park Metropolis.
Whereas movie tax incentives are totally different from the thousands and thousands that an annual pageant stands to generate — particularly one with, say, a multi-decade working historical past and a verifiable observe report of attracting over 10,000 out-of-state and worldwide attendees — the underlying financial concept is similar: appeal to a bunch of individuals to spend a bunch of cash.
And they’ll.
To the tune of $13.8 million in state and native tax income and $69.7 million in native wages yearly, in accordance with the Sundance Institute’s 2024 financial affect report. The report additionally estimated that cash spent straight by attendees got here in round $138 million. Out-of-state guests, about one-third of the pageant attendees, spent a mean of $735 per day.
“At this time’s announcement is an incredible win for Colorado small companies. We welcome the Sundance Movie Pageant making its new residence in Boulder,” mentioned state Sen. Mark Baisley in an emailed assertion. Baisley, a Woodland Park Republican, co-sponsored the Sundance tax incentive invoice. “It will increase gross sales at eating places, retailers and different small companies all through the area that depend on tourism, bringing a lot wanted income to Colorado communities throughout a quiet time of yr.”
