The public face of the Sundance Film Festival - the screenings, the parties, the celebrities, Robert Redford - is all that most people ever see.
    But Utah's biggest annual entertainment event would never come together each January if not for the thousands of staffers, volunteers and other workers who toil feverishly behind the scenes. Instead of scrambling to pimp their film, these Sundancers worry about more pressing concerns, such as: Does the Racquet Club theater have enough Port-A-Potties?
    The logistics of mounting a midwinter film festival in a cramped ski town are challenging enough. Add a growing crush of attendees, and the task gets tougher each year. Last January, 48,298 people
attended the festival - 32 percent more than came just three years earlier.
    Here's a glimpse at some of the statistics that what goes go into planning the 11-day event that kicks off Thursday. Call it Sundance by the Numbers.
   
    Seller beware
    When Sundance-goers find out what Linda Pfafflin does, they often try to be her new best friend. Why? Pfafflin oversees ticketing for the whole festival - some 380,000 little rectangles of paper that, for 10 days at least, are more valuable in Park City than money. Because demand for the $15 film tickets far exceeds supply, a few buyers try to resell them at inflated prices. Pfafflin takes
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a dim view of this. When she noticed a Florida woman scalping newly purchased Sundance tickets on eBay earlier this month, she canceled the order and blacklisted the woman from buying festival tickets in the future.
   
    Star treatment?
    Despite the growing media emphasis on celebrities at Sundance, festival staffers insist their priority is the filmmakers. Judging by the festival's ticket-allotment policy, they mean it. Each feature filmmaker receives 10 tickets to each of his or her screenings, which is 10 more than, say, Lindsay Lohan gets. "We focus entirely on the filmmakers," says senior ticketing manager Linda Pfafflin. "Paris Hilton or somebody like that just can't come in and say, 'I want tickets.' "
   
    Baby, it's cold outside
    Festival staffers erect 12 white tents of varying size, mostly outside theaters, to keep wait-listers and others warm. They also install some 50 propane-fueled patio heaters outside venues and at shuttle-bus stops. Because the heaters burn from dawn to midnight, one crew circles Park City three times a day to refuel them.
   
    Snow job
    Sundance employs a crew of 8 hardy workers to shovel snow and sprinkle salt around theaters and other venues. In one two-day span last week, they cleared 21,500 cubic feet of snow from Park City sidewalks and parking lots, believed to be a city record.
   
    Crowd control
    You know those temporary barriers that demarcate the teller line at your bank? Well, Sundance rents 466 of those - more than half a mile's worth - to organize the waiting lists outside theaters. The festival also rents 494 steel barricades, most of them along Main Street to keep celebrity-crazed pedestrians - "Eeek, there's Diddy!!!" - from running into traffic.
   
    Tennis, anyone?
    Festival staffers have 32 hours to transform a tennis court at the Park City Racquet Club into a hall for the Jan. 26 awards ceremony and closing-night party. Then they must turn it back into a tennis court by Monday morning. "That's the biggest logistical challenge we have," says production manager John Stevenson. "We can work all night and sometimes do."
   
    Chug-a-lug
    Judging by this year's liquor invoices, partiers should be well-lubricated at Sundance's official events. The festival has ordered 200 cases of Turning Leaf Vineyards wine, 200 cases of Stella Artois beer and 60 cases of 360 Vodka (and that's not counting the many private parties).
   
    SUNDANCE STATS
    $59.6 million - Money that festivalgoers contributed last year to Utah's economy
   
    16 - Percentage of festivalgoers last year who came from outside the United States
   
    2,540 - Number of 3-D glasses Eccles Theater staffers will distribute to audience members at Saturday night's two screenings of concert film "U2 3D"
   
    20 - Hours per day (from 6:30 a.m. to 2:30 a.m) that Sundance shuttle buses operate
   
    80 - Average percent capacity of screenings during the festival, a number deflated by half-full New Frontier and early-morning screenings
   
    30 - Percentage of ticketholders, on average, who don't show up for screenings, allowing wait-list folks to get in
   
    1,550 - Number of volunteers expected to work the festival this year
   
    105,000 - Number of ballots printed for the festival's four Audience Awards
    Source: Sundance Institute