Park City prepares to host 40% more events at 2034 Winter Olympics than in 2002

A scene from Paris where the 2024 Olympics are taking place. Photo: Michele Roepke // TownLift

Mayor Worel and other city and county leaders say their recent trip to the 2024 Olympics gave them valuable insights as plans for 2034 are set into motion

PARK CITY, Utah – Although the Salt Lake City Olympic Games are still ten years away, a recent trip to Paris got the idea mill churning among city and county leaders. Those ideas and observations were shared at a joint Summit County – City Council meeting held Monday, July 5, which could be considered the official kickoff in Park City’s planning phase for the 2034 Winter Games.

Park City and Summit County will be host to 40% more events in the 2034 Games compared with 2002, so making sure venues are equipped to handle a significant increase in spectator volume is a top priority. That statistic comes from SLC-UT 2034 communications director Tom Kelly, who said though the final number of events won’t be known for some years, a good indicator is the number of events that will be held next year at the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics. That number is set at 116 events compared with the 78 held here in 2002. The number of venues by comparison will remain about the same.

The increase in the number of events at the same amount of venues will make planning for a smooth and positive spectator experience in 2034 a high priority.

Also, top on the list of priorities is figuring out how to create opportunities for small and local businesses to build economic opportunity and diversity in the state and county and looking at creative ways to make the 2034 Games environmentally sustainable.

This will mean making sure venues are easy to navigate so spectators can move around efficiently and having waste initiatives to limit trash from things like water bottles and plastic utensils. Local leaders also want to bring Main Street in Park City alive with various activations to showcase Park City to the rest of the world.

Park City Mayor Nann Worel, Summit County Council chair Malena Stevens and Park City Chamber CEO and president Jennifer Wesselhoff spoke at Monday’s presentation on the heels of their trip to Paris.

“It was a wonderful opportunity to interact informally with other leaders, get to know them on a more personal basis, and talk about what our dreams for our community are and find out what their vision is for the state,” Worel said.

Other state leaders in Paris were Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall, Governor Spencer Cox along with Utah’s Speaker of the House and Senate President.

One of the highlights for Wesselhoff was the opportunity to go to Lille, the host city for basketball events in Paris.

“It was important for me, particularly with my counterpart from Ogden, to travel a little bit outside of the city to see how a city about an hour and a half away activates the city because that’s going to be very similar to our situation here in Park City,” she said. “The opportunity to visit their city square very similar to what perhaps our Main Street district could look like, and see that activation was was really eye-opening and interesting.”

Wesselhof said the Utah delegates also learned a lot about how they might partner with both the for-profit and the nonprofit sector, how to incorporate activities for youth, and how to highlight local artists in bringing Main Street alive.

One of the other topics discussed was how Salt Lake City might design their volunteer program.

“It was interesting to talk through how to make volunteer roles exciting and rewarding for all of the types of volunteers that you need. We learned that their budget, which was about 1,400 euro for the volunteers, that included transportation, food and uniforms, was quite low. So, it will be interesting as we start thinking about the volunteer program. How do we budget for that?” Wesselhof said.

Stevens discussed what ordinances and legislation the city and county may want to consider ahead of the Games.

“One of the one of the interesting things that they did regarding plastic cups is they actually enacted a city ordinance that prohibited the use of single use plastics at events. Something that I hadn’t considered would be the kind of the infrastructure with ordinances or other sorts of legislation that we may want to consider that we as local communities, or even statewide, would be useful as we prepare for the Games,” Stevens said.

Stevens also said she wanted to explore ways to involve small businesses as plans for the 2034 Olympics develop. Almost immediately after being awarded the Olympics, local Paris officials got together and, as a community, created a non-profit dedicated to focusing on how small businesses could contribute to the Games.

“It was really a marriage between, how do we support small businesses, how do we use recycled materials to create the infrastructure that needed to be created,” Stevens said.

She cited an example of a small business that made 11,000 chairs from recycled products for a new swimming facility that needed to be constructed for the Paris Olympics.

“I think it could be really interesting in this state as we have so many startups that are focusing on a variety of industries and really focusing on creating sustainability within our economy,” Stevens said.