One more advantage to being a local during the Sundance Film Festival: Free advice from festival staffers.

The Sundance Institute is offering a free "how to festival" meeting, tonight at 6 at the City Library Auditorium, 210 E. 400 South, Salt Lake City. (The session repeats Thursday at 6 p.m. at the Park City Library Center, 1255 Park Ave., Park City.)

Sundance Institute staffers will offer a step-by-step walkthrough of the festival ticketing process, talk about community opportunities available during the festival, and list the 10 best things to do at the festival. (You'll also get to check out the festival's newest venue: The City Library Auditorium.)

After that, at 6:30 p.m., there will be a free screening of one of the 2011 festival's better films: "On the Ice," Andrew Okpeaha MacLean's thriller about Alaskan teens caught up in murder.

For more information about Sundance's local connections, visit http://www.sundance.org/utah. The 2012 Sundance Film Festival runs Jan. 19-29 in Park City, and at venues in Salt Lake City, Ogden and the Sundance resort.