Boulder’s Pearl Street Mall buzzed with excitement on Thursday afternoon as the news of Sundance Film Festival coming to the city spread.

Residents and visitors alike gathered at a press conference outside the Boulder Theater. Shop owners shared the news with customers coming in. Several Boulder residents told The Denver Gazette that they’re excited to see the energy and arts emphasis that Sundance will bring when it arrives in 2027.

The Sundance Institute made the official announcement that its annual festival will move to Boulder in 2027 after four decades in Park City, Utah. The festival is expected to be a huge boon to Colorado’s economy — typically held in January and heavily tied with the ski industry — as the festival contributed over $130 million in economic impact and created more than 1,700 jobs in 2024, according to the organization.

Organizers have been looking for alternative options to host the festival for another decade and had narrowed it down to staying in Utah or moving to Boulder or Cincinnati.

“During the process, it became clear that Boulder is the ideal location in which to build our Festival’s future, marking a key strategic step in its natural evolution,” said Ebs Burnough, Sundance Institute Board Chair, in a news release.

The institute said it plans to center the film festival around downtown Boulder, utilizing its theaters, venues and Pearl Street Mall. It also said it plans to utilize the University of Colorado Boulder campus as a gathering space.

Devon Johnson, who works at CU and studied theater at the university, said she’s excited to see how a big film festival will impact the city’s arts community.

Johnson and her mother, Debra Johnson, were walking Pearl Street when they entered a pet store and were told the news by the cashier, they said.

“There’s been some tension about it and some different opinions,” Devon Johnson said, explaining that she’s paid attention to the decision-making process and was excited to learn that Sundance chose Boulder.

“Hopefully, there will be some really cool opportunities to come from this,” she said.

Among the Boulder arts community, Johnson has heard some concern that Sundance would overshadow other arts events in the city. She is hopeful, however, that the organization will find a way to work together with the local organizations in Boulder to help bring them into the spotlight, too, rather than overshadow them.

“I think this will bring more money, which will be great, and if we can work together to highlight the other homegrown organizations that are already here in addition to this new spotlight, I think it will bring more money to the community and more opportunity for our arts to be highlighted,” Johnson said.

Debra Johnson lives in Texas and was visiting her daughter in Boulder when she heard the news. She said Boulder seems “perfect” for the event.

“Where else would be this perfect?” she said, adding with a laugh that Austin would be the only comparable place. “Here you have the Rockies, the Flatirons, people are going to be here and are going to want to be here. It’s a magnet.”

She added that she will “absolutely” come back to visit for the festival in two years.

Devon Johnson said she foresees some challenges with parking and traffic that the festival will bring to Boulder, but she hopes the event coming pushes the city to address those longstanding issues.

“I think maybe this will give Boulder a push to look at some of these issues that have been long-term and think about how to resolve them for the next phase of Boulder’s future,” Johnson said. “This is going to change the face of the community a bit in a lot of positive ways, but I think it really needs to be something that the city is looking at with the community to figure out how to help the people who do live here as well as those who will be visiting for this.”

Merna and Stewart Saliman have lived in Boulder for 11 years and said they’re also excited for the festival to come to their city.

“It’ll be the feather in the cap of the community, and the feather in the cap of the whole metro area,” Merna Saliman said. “There’s so much excitement that it will be here and about what it’s going to do for the community and all of the action it will bring.”

She is also excited about the connection the festival will have to CU, she added, saying having such a high profile arts event will be good for the university’s arts programs.

Stewart Saliman said the festival will bring more traffic and parking challenges to Boulder, but he thinks the city can handle it.

“We have traffic issues now,” he said. “We’ll just have a few more to work out. It’s worth it.”

Marion Down has lived in Boulder for 36 years and raised her daughter, Aisha Down, in Boulder. They agreed that any new arts coming to Boulder is a good thing.

“Look, this is a town that cares a lot about the world and has a strong international interest,” Aisha Down, who now lives in Alaska but grew up in the city, said. “For the community here, it fits them. They want to know about other places. They want a taste of what life is like elsewhere. So it’s a great fit and lucky for us.”

Boulder Film Festival already offers “a lot of energy” to the city, so Marion Down said adding another film festival will just bolster that energy.

“Anything that adds more arts to Boulder is great,” she said.