PARK CITY, Utah – The Sundance Film Festival begins later this week in Park City, marking the final year the event will be held in Utah before moving to Colorado.
“We are excited because it means we’re going to get a lot more people in here,” said Kylee Trees, who is the assistant manager of Kemo Sabe.
Kemo Sabe is a high-end cowboy-style hat and boots shop on Main Street in Park City.
Even though it has been a slow start to the winter snow season because of the lack of natural snow, many businesses along Main Street have remained busy.
“We are jam-packed,” said Trees.
Sundance is expected to provide another economic boost.
“It definitely picks up for the first week and kind of a little bit for the second week,” she said.
Just down Main Street, The Eating Establishment has seen a similar trend.
Manager Melissa Peretti said the winter season has remained solid overall.
“There’s been a slight decrease, but it really overall has been a good season so far,” said Peretti.
Peretti said visitors who are not skiing are still spending time and money in town.
Her thought is if people aren’t skiing as much because of the conditions, those who booked ski vacations are still coming to town.
And they’re shopping and eating more.
“That is true. They’re eating. Yeah, that’s for sure,” she said with a laugh.
Trees agrees, saying visitors from out of state and out of the country are still looking for things to do in Park City.
“I would say it brings more people to shop. We haven’t really seen a decline in it at all,” she said.
Visit Park City officials said Sundance has long provided an economic benefit by bringing visitors who are not focused on skiing.
“It’s ten days where we don’t have a lot of people skiing,” said Dan Howard, vice president of sales and communications for Visit Park City. “Most of the hotel rooms are taken by visitors who are here to see movies.”
Howard said the festival’s departure after this year adds an emotional element.
“It’s an emotional kind of end of an era,” said Howard. “But I think people want to be really optimistic and we’re going to show some special things from Park City to say thank you.”
That includes closing Main Street to cars and having live music for people to enjoy.
“We have a bunch of parties planned,” said Trees. “It’s going to be a great time.”
