Sundance Film Festival is leaving Utah. Here’s why, and what Utah offered it to stay.

The Sundance Film Festival is leaving Utah and moving to different mountains.

America’s most important launchpad for independent film will abandon its home for Boulder, Colorado, starting in 2027, the nonprofit Sundance Institute announced Thursday.

Boulder won in a vote Wednesday evening by the institute’s board of trustees, beating out two other finalists in a yearlong bid process: Cincinnati and a combined bid by Salt Lake City and Park City, the ski town that has hosted the festival since 1981.

The institute — founded by actor-filmmaker Robert Redford and named for the Utah ski resort he once owned — will see its current contract with Park City expire after next year’s festival.

Officials have promised the 2026 festival, happening Jan. 22-Feb. 1, will be a final celebration of Sundance’s long history in the Beehive State.

“What we look forward to on January 22, 2026, when we kick off our festival in Park City, [is that] on that first day, as always, unveiling a program of films and new artists, of discovery,” Eugene Hernandez, the festival’s director, said Thursday. “That’s unchanged.”

Amanda Kelso, the institute’s acting CEO, said Thursday that Sundance was “deeply grateful” to Utah, Park City and Salt Lake City “for the long-standing legacy and relationship that we have had.”

“It really is something that is part of our DNA, as an organization, as an institute and as a festival,” she said.

The three finalist cities “were all so close,” Kelso added. But Boulder ended up winning out “because we felt like it was a place where we could continue to grow and expand the festival.”

[Read more: ‘Betrayal’: Utah film lovers mourn the loss of Sundance Film Festival]

In a statement accompanying Sundance’s announcement, Redford wrote: “Words cannot express the sincere gratitude I have for Park City, the state of Utah, and all those in the Utah community that have helped to build the organization. What we’ve created is remarkably special and defining.”

He added that change is “inevitable,” and that “we must always evolve and grow, which has been at the core of our survival.”

The move to Boulder, Redford said, “will ensure that the festival continues its work of risk-taking, supporting innovative storytellers, fostering independence, and entertaining and enlightening audiences.”

What Utah was offering

Utah’s bid to keep Sundance was a substantial one, according to figures the Salt Lake City mayor’s office provided to The Salt Lake Tribune.

Pledged public funding for the festival — from state, county and municipal budgets — totaled $5.53 million in cash and $6.65 million in in-kind contributions. That’s up from the $2.75 million in cash and $3.72 million in in-kind contributions Sundance received for the 2025 festival.

Those in-kind contributions included a shuttle service between downtown Salt Lake City and Park City that would have been sponsored by Visit Salt Lake.

The Utah bid also included $10 million in private contributions that would have gone to Sundance when it signed a new contract with Salt Lake City. That’s on top of the $3.5 million the Utah Legislature recently approved to go to Sundance.

Another Utah proposal was the creation of a technology conference to run alongside the film festival, with $2 million pledged in private money and another $500,000 in in-kind contributions a year.

“We have absolute confidence in the competitive bid the Utah Host Committee submitted,” said both Virginia Pearce, director of the Utah Film Commission, and Natalie Randall, managing director of the Utah Office of Tourism and Film, in a joint statement Thursday.

“We are incredibly proud of how the city, county, state and private sectors united to showcase the exciting possibilities for a reimagined festival experience, while honoring the rich legacy of its past,” they continued.

Losing Sundance is expected to be a sizable blow to Utah’s economy. An economic impact study the institute commissioned last year reported that the 2024 festival added $132 million to the state’s gross domestic product, and some $13.8 million in state and local tax revenue. Of the nearly 73,000 who attended that year, two-thirds were from Utah.

When asked whether Utah’s conservative politics influenced the decision to move Sundance to blue-state Colorado, Ebs Burnough, the chair of the institute’s board, said, “the short answer is no.”

[Read more: Did Utah’s conservative politics drive the Sundance Film Festival to the blue state next door?]

“We’ve been in Utah for 40 years. We are not unaccustomed to the politics,” Burnough said. “We’ve dealt with all manner of politics before, so that’s not something that we’ve ever been afraid of or run away from. And it was not a major part of how we addressed this process.”

Utah saw a similar blow to its economy in 2017, when the Outdoor Retailer trade show left its longtime digs at the Salt Palace Convention Center for Denver the following year. Organizers left, in part, in protest of Utah lawmakers’ efforts to fight the designation of Bears Ears National Monument. The trade show returned to the Salt Palace in 2023.

Utah’s politics entered the industry conversation about Sundance’s future when the state Legislature passed a bill to ban pride flags from public schools and government buildings. The Hollywood trade publication Deadline quoted an unnamed “Sundance insider” who called HB77 “a terrible law, a terrible look for the state.”

Gov. Spencer Cox, who has promoted Utah’s bid to keep Sundance, announced late Thursday night that he will let HB77 become law without his signature.

In a statement Thursday, Cox said he was “disappointed” by Sundance’s decision, which he called “a mistake.”

“One day, they’ll realize they left behind not just a place but their heritage,” Cox said. He added that meetings have begun to discuss creating a new film festival “that honors our legacy and writes the next chapter of independent film in Utah.”

Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson, who was one of the Sundance Institute’s original employees, called the move “the end of an era,” citing Redford’s “vision to nurture independent film and filmmakers.”

“He chose Utah as he recognized the power of its land and its people. Our economy, local residents, and the broader film community benefited,” she said. “... Unfortunately, the current leadership has lost sight of that legacy and spirit that has been a staple of the organization for nearly 50 years.”

Why Boulder?

The commitment with Boulder will be for 10 years, which would keep Sundance in Colorado through at least 2036. Kelso said she did not have information about whether the contract would include clauses to allow either side to end the commitment early.

Boulder, Kelso said, “is a mountain town. It’s a college town. … It’s an art town. It has a lot of artists, not just filmmakers but poets and musicians. And it’s a tech town.”

It’s about a 45-minute drive from Denver’s airport, comparable to the time it takes to get from Salt Lake City International Airport to Park City. Boulder’s population is also about 105,000, so it’s not a big city, like Salt Lake City or Cincinnati.

“One of the things that is important to us,” Kelso said, “is the intimacy that it has.”

The Sundance Institute will maintain its other programs in Utah, Kelso said, notably the filmmakers’ laboratories held each summer at the Sundance Mountain Resort in Provo Canyon. Last year’s directors’ lab was held at Colorado’s Stanley Hotel — the location that famously inspired Stephen King to write “The Shining” — but that was only because of construction at Sundance resort, she said.

The predecessor to the Sundance Film Festival, the Utah/U.S. Film Festival, launched in Salt Lake City in September 1978. After a couple of years at the old Trolley Corners theaters, the festival moved to Park City in January 1981, at the suggestion of Redford’s longtime friend, film director Sydney Pollack.

The festival’s landing in Park City predates Redford’s creation of the Sundance Institute by several months.

The institute took over operations of the United States Film Festival in 1985 — the year the Coen brothers screened their first movie, “Blood Simple,” in Park City.

In 1989, Steven Soderbergh’s debut film “sex, lies and videotape” put the festival on Hollywood’s radar, by scoring the first $1 million distribution deal for an event film.

The festival changed its name to Sundance in 1991.