Sundance Film Festival impacts Park City residents
After a 10-day run, Park City’s Sundance Film Festival has come to an end, much to the relief of some locals.
Tourism is the main source of income for Utah’s ski town, Park City. Now add the Sundance Film Festival, which draws crowds of hundreds of visitors from all over the world.
Locals said the festival impacts their town significantly.
“It definitely flavors the kinds of people that are here that you generally see for example in the supermarket. Definitely an interesting Los Angeles mostly flavor, you can definitely tell the difference from a mile away,” Sy Aryeh, a Park City local and Park City Mountain ski instructor, said.
Some say they hunker down and avoid Park City’s Main Street to avoid the crowds and traffic the festival brings.
“Everybody avoids going into the old town completely because it’s mayhem,” Aryeh said.
“For me, for my family, it’s mainly the traffic that’s impacted us, it’s a lot more crowded,” Gabi Grigore, who lives in Park City, said.
One place people said they didn’t find the crowds was on the ski hills.
“The ski mountain was very quiet, extremely quiet during the Sundance period. It was probably the quietest time of the year so far. Of course as soon as Sundance was over, it totally freed up the traffic and the mountain started getting busy again,” Aryeh said.
The Sundance Film Festival will return to Park City next year in mid-January.