After one final go-around in Park City, the Sundance Film Festival is leaving the increasingly unfriendly confines of Utah for Colorado. The 2027 festival will be held in Boulder beginning next January, and Sundance has revealed it will officially take place between January 21-31. Today’s announcement also introduced 11 theatrical venues and four additional venues for talk and programming.
READ MORE: Did The 2027 Oscars Start At Sundance?
In a statement, Eugene Hernandez, Director, Sundance Film Festival and Public Programming, remarked, “Working closely with the Colorado community, the 2027 Sundance Film Festival is already in our sights as we build towards an exciting debut in Boulder, where our programming will meet audiences next January. Nestled at the base of Colorado’s iconic Flatirons, venues across the city and CU Boulder’s campus provide an ideal setting for festivalgoers from across the world to come together, revel in art, spark conversation, and create unforgettable memories. Boulder offers a renowned creative arts and tech scene, paired with the vibrant CU Boulder students, faculty, and staff. We’ll share more details in the coming months and hope you’ll join us on our journey to Boulder as we build the Sundance Film Festival’s new home.”
The festival provided photos and historical background for the venues on its official website, but the standouts are the Macky Auditorium Concert Hall at the University of Colorado Boulder (2,000+ guests), the Chautauqua Auditorium (1,300 guests), and the Boulder High School Auditorium (900 guests). Comparatively, the largest venue in Park City, the Eccles Theater, had a capacity of, at most, 1,270 moviegoers. The second biggest venue post-pandemic, The Ray, only sat 500 people. The Library theater sat 484. Even the Raquet Club Theater, a venue used off and on after 2010, only had 602 seats. In terms of theater size and the festival’s ability to sell tickets, Boulder should be a game-changer.
Here is a rundown of each venue and its audience capacity.
THEATERS
Boedecker Theater — Dairy Arts Center
60-70 seat modern art-house movie theater
Boulder High School Auditorium
reportedly up to 900 attendees
Boulder Theater
850 seated guests
Casey Middle School Auditorium
350 seated guests
Chautauqua Auditorium
seating capacity of 1,313 guests
Cinemark Century Boulder
16 screens, traditional multiplex
eTown Hall
200-220 guests
Gordon Gamm Theater — Dairy Arts Center
250 guests
Macky Auditorium Concert Hall — University of Colorado Boulder
2,035-2052 seated guests
Muenzinger Auditorium — University of Colorado Boulder
400 guests
Roe Green Theatre — University of Colorado Boulder
250 to 412 seated guests depending on the configuration
TALKS AND FESTIVAL PROGRAMMING
Canyon Theater, Boulder Public Library District
Dairy Arts Center
eTown Hall
Old Main — University of Colorado Boulder
The festival also provided a map of the venues you can find embedded in this post. Some venues will be walkable, but as with Park City, a bus line will be the go-to from the Cinemark multiplex to some venues, such as the Chautauqua Auditorium. Unlike Park City, however, there are multiple theaters within a five-minute walk of each other.
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