Sundance Film Festival is making the move from its longtime home in Park City, Utah, to Boulder, Colorado, in 2027 — and with less than six months left until the festival premieres, it’s sharing what visitors can expect from its new home.
Festival Director Eugene Hernandez shared updates on Wednesday about theaters and venues, as well as how the festival is expanding its competition categories.
When is the 2027 Sundance Film Festival?
The 2027 festival will be taking place Jan. 21-31. World premieres will be held between Jan. 21-26, and the annual gala will take place Jan. 22.
Online screenings will be available at the festival again next year from Jan. 28-31.
Where will the 2027 Sundance Film Festival be held?
Film screenings at next year’s festival will be at theaters located within a 2-mile radius from each other in Boulder, Hernandez wrote — a contrast, as The Hollywood Reporter pointed out, from the more “sprawling locations” in Park City.
The festival’s largest venue will be the Macky Auditorium on the University of Colorado, Boulder, campus, which Deadline called “essentially the city’s Carnegie Hall.” The theater’s screen will be the largest ever for the festival.
Other venues will include the Boulder Theater, Chautauqua Auditorium, and a Cinemark Century theater that will host press and industry screenings. (“Any Sundance veteran will be confounded by watching screenings in an actual modern movie theater, not a makeshift public building or school auditorium,” Variety wrote of the addition of the Cinemark.)
What else is new at the 2027 Sundance Film Festival?
Hernandez also announced that Sundance will be expanding its four central competition categories — U.S. Dramatic, World Cinema Dramatic, U.S. Documentary, and World Cinema Documentary — to 12 films each.
The festival is also expanding other sections, such as Premieres, Next, Midnight and Family Matinee, as well as talks and events like Cinema Cafe, The Big Conversation and Power of Story.
“More seats, more theaters, allows us this flexibility,” Hernandez told Deadline about expanding the programming lineup.
When do tickets for the 2027 Sundance Film Festival go on sale?
Passes and packages for the festival will go on sale in October, while single film tickets will be available in early January. The festival’s lineup will be announced in December.
Sundance is also looking for 2,000 volunteers to help at the festival next year, and applications will open on its website on Aug. 31.
Why is Sundance Film Festival moving to Boulder?
Sundance has been a staple in Park City for nearly 50 years, founded by the late Robert Redford. Last year, the festival announced it would be leaving its longtime home for Boulder.
In 2024, Sundance said it would be undergoing a selection process for the next host city of the festival ahead of its contract expiring with Park City in 2026, KSL reported. The field was narrowed later in 2024 to three cities: Park City, Boulder and Cincinnati. The decision to move to Boulder was made in March of last year.
Colorado passed a film festival tax incentive bill in early 2025, before the festival’s decision was made, that would secure $34 million in refundable tax credits over the course of a decade if Sundance began the moving process to Boulder before Jan. 1 of this year, KSL reported.
“Boulder is an art town, tech town, mountain town, and college town,” Sundance Institute CEO Amanda Kelso said in a statement at the time of the announcement, per KSL. “It is a place where the Festival can build and flourish. ... We can’t imagine a better fit than Boulder.”
But, after the announcement, festival leaders also paid tribute to the state where Sundance began.
“The way the festival has been ingrained in Utah culture has fostered the growth and character of the (Sundance) Institute and the festival,” Hernandez said during a festival event earlier this year. “And the way the Utah community has been part of our fabric is fundamental.”