Sundance: Who Comes?                          

By: Olivia Bezemer, Sophie Young

Every year hundreds of people from around the world gather in Park City, Utah, for the most celebrated film festival in North America. These people range from small town tourists to some of today’s biggest stars. This year’s stars are found strolling along Main Street and all over Park City.  

Some of the most common stars this year you would have seen wandering Main Street include people such as: Nick and Joe Jonas, John Legend, James Franco, Daniel Radcliffe, Tyler Posey, Austin Butler, Selena Gomez, etc.

They all come for the same reason. To celebrate the films they may or may not be in. Many of them have been featured in varieties of films every year; for example, Nick Jonas was featured in a small film named ‘Goat’.

This year is Sundance’s 38th year anniversary. The festival started in 1986, and it was just a small film festival in a small ski town. Look at it now, it’s the the country’s largest film festival, with a handful of people that come to Park City. On average, there’s about 40-50 different stars that come to Sundance each year.

It is a very popular activity for tourists, and even locals to go up to Main Street in search of the celebrities. Although the festival lasts ten days, most locals only find themselves up on Main Street two days of the ten. The tourists come from all over, along with the filmmakers that are coming from all around the world. Sundance attracts all kinds of people from all kinds of cultures. There are even field trips for the middle schoolers to go and see one of the films each year. And the high schoolers and junior high schoolers get to go to a lecture hall and see Sundance short films.

Since 1986 Sundance has been a success. Still growing in popularity each year, this vast event has brought a lot of income, tourists, and morphed this small ski town into what it is today.