Without immunity or a vaccine and no knowledge if or when the coronavirus will be back with a vengeance this winter, planning for the future is difficult. Still, even with the future unknown, the Sundance Film Festival team says, for now, it’s planning for its 40th anniversay live festival come January.
Sundance Institute Managing Director Betsy Wallace spent Friday morning on a conference call planning and budgeting for the 2021 Sundance Film Festival – which will celebrate the 40th anniversary.
Wallace says, at this point, it’s full speed ahead.
“At this point in time we are definitely moving forward with the live festival and you know when we think back about why we're here and what Sundance does so well it's still a live festival, Wallace said. “At this point there's no alterations towards that so a live gathering in park city is really you know fundamentally core to our work and always will be and at this point there have been no changes to that plan.”
She understands, however that things can change, and they are exploring other technologies…
“Like many other live events, so many have already considered or thought about doing digital,” she said. “We’re evaluating digital tools so if people can't make it here because they feel uncomfortable flying or traveling or whatever - we want to make sure that we have audiences enjoying the festival however we can, but the core of our of our festival every year is live here in Park City live.”
Summit County Health Director Rich Bullough has said until we have herd immunity or a vaccine, we will be unable to have mass gatherings. Under the governor’s stabilization plan there is no guarantee of when crowds will be able to gather…
Wallace says with the festival still eight months out and knowing the amount of work it takes to produce a live festival, they need to continue with this plan, until they know otherwise…If anything changes, she says they will evaluate where they are.
Meanwhile, planning is also moving forward with the new headquarters as part of the Park City Arts and Culture District in a city owned parcel off Kearns Blvd. and Bonanza Drive.
Park City Mayor Andy Beerman says the master planning for the District isn’t complete, and with future revenues unknown, the city won’t be taking on a major capital project for a bit. But he says the city will start prepping the parcel – so it’s ready to go.
“So what we're doing,” Beerman said, “is we're slowly moving forward with our planning process and we are going to do the preparation on the site get it ready for construction and continue to work with our stakeholders and monitor the situation. At this point the City Council is very committed to moving forward. We think this is the right project. We think there could be some opportunities coming out of this with stimulus packages for infrastructure and projects and if we're shovel ready we might be able to get some federal or state help on this when it comes time.”
The tenants in the existing buildings he says have been put on notice to vacate the premises by September 1st and he says they’ll begin prepping the site for future construction this fall.
