Boulder’s Sundance honeymoon meets a familiar Park City problem: lodging prices

Festivalgoers walk Main Street during the 2026 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, the festival’s final year in Utah before its move to Boulder, Colorado. Photo: Sundance Institute

As early rental prices climb ahead of the festival’s 2027 Colorado debut, Park City’s longtime Sundance pressures are already following the festival east.

PARK CITY, Utah — Months after Park City said goodbye to Sundance, Boulder is beginning to confront one of the festival’s most familiar problems: where everyone is supposed to stay, and at what price.

The Salt Lake Tribune reported Tuesday that early Boulder lodging listings for the 2027 Sundance Film Festival are already raising concerns, with some homes listed for more than $5,000 per night during the festival. The report, citing Boulder Reporting Lab, said high prices could push some attendees to stay outside Boulder, potentially diluting the walkable, communal festival experience that helped define Sundance in Park City.

For Park City, the issue is familiar. For more than four decades, Sundance brought filmmakers, buyers, publicists, actors, volunteers, and film lovers into a mountain town already balancing peak ski season, limited lodging, winter traffic, and high visitor demand.

The festival officially selected Boulder as its new home beginning in 2027, ending its more than 40-year run in Utah. Sundance officials said the move reflected changing logistical and operational needs, with Boulder offering a compact downtown footprint, venues near Pearl Street, and access to the University of Colorado Boulder campus.

But the early lodging picture suggests Boulder may not escape the pressure points that long shaped Sundance in Park City.

According to The Salt Lake Tribune, Boulder has roughly 2,900 hotel rooms, while the 2025 Sundance Film Festival drew about 85,000 in-person attendees in Park City. Boulder has also created temporary short-term rental licenses meant to expand lodging during the festival, with more than 260 licenses issued and hundreds more pending, the Tribune reported.

The concern is not only cost. If attendees stay in Denver, Longmont, Louisville, or other nearby communities, Boulder could see more commuter traffic and fewer dollars spent in its downtown restaurants, bars, and shops — the same type of economic leakage that festival organizers and host cities try to avoid.

Park City leaders have spent the past year publicly reckoning with Sundance’s departure. As the 2026 festival closed, Mayor Ryan Dickey called the loss cultural as much as economic, saying the festival had shaped Park City’s identity and global reputation in ways that could not be measured only through hotel occupancy or restaurant revenue.

“What many people are feeling right now won’t show up on a spreadsheet,” Dickey wrote at the time.

TownLift also reported that Boulder officials visited Park City during the final festival to study crowd flow, transportation, public safety coordination, communications, and how Sundance wove itself into the daily lives of residents and businesses. At the time, Boulder officials described the move with excitement and “healthy nerves.”

Those nerves now appear warranted.

Park City’s long Sundance era was often defined by contradiction. The festival brought international attention, cultural cachet, and major winter spending, while also intensifying debates over congestion, access, affordability, and who the town was really built to serve during peak visitor weeks.

Boulder’s first Sundance is scheduled for Jan. 21-31, 2027. By then, festival organizers and city officials are expected to continue working to expand lodging options and bring prices into line. But the early listings are already offering a reminder from Park City’s past: winning Sundance is one thing. Absorbing it is another.