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Trip Report: Sundance 2015

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Trip Report - Sundance 2015.

Sundance film festival is set in high altitude sub zero village of Park CIty, Utah. Most things happen right in Park City village, so you park your car and walk everywhere. There are lots of parties going on, some but not all invite only, and open bar is common. There are lots of celebrities everywhere, doing workshops, talking about films, or just socializing like everyone else. Prime example: James Franco, sporting a creepy mustache, talking about a new gay film at a 3 story Oculus Rift virtual reality exhibit house.

This was my first Sundance Film Festival, did a Friday night-Sunday night trip. Saw 2 films, Cronies (a modern day male on male gangster love story) and Partisan (a visceral story of a commune that trains child solders, starring Vincent Cassel, highly recommended, I wrote up a nice imdb review for it pending, to be published soon).

After the film plays, the crew and cast come out for Q&A, super intimate and awesome to meet the people you just watched on the big screen after the credits roll.

Yes, some people do ski / snowboard during the day.

The crowd is great fantastic: lots of creative, intelligent people, on cloud 9 to be at the festival.

Some negatives:
Locals / townies generally hate Sundance and the crowd it brings in. Be nice to them, and be ready for some attitude. Have empathy. (local business owners are exception, Saturday is their biggest income of the year)

You need RSVPs and insight to parties. If you find yourself on a mission to "Just go to a bar for a drink" be prepared to stand in line for 20 minutes in sub zero temps to get into a shitty irish bar with NBA playing on the TVs. This is only a problem if you don't network.

This is either a negative or ;positive - NY night clubs Tao and 1OAK set up "pop up" clubs just for Sundance week, but with high demand and limited space, they charge as much as $15k for a crappy table and due to Utah laws they will kick you out really early. At 1:15AM we were already told we couldn't join our friend's table. On the other hand the clubs are full of celebs and people who went said they had fun.

Some highlights:
Chobani's hosted a happy hour at Park City Live - appies and drinks open bar. Iggy Azalea was doing her soundcheck/rehearsal for upcoming show, so we had basically a free private concert. Iggy is awesome live, killed it.

For the first time in 600 hours of flying, one of the girls used a Little John (basically bathroom in a zip lock bag) in the back of my plane, despite already being on descent to Vegas for unscheduled bathroom stop.

The private terminal at SLC airport had so many jets that they had to close a runway and use it for extra parking.

Never a dull moment.

Pro tips:

  • Install the Sundance app and start waitlisting for movies on day 1 for practice so when a film you care for is playing you'll actually get in. We had 100% success with getting in on waitlist but it's a little tricky.
  • RSVP for as many events as you can before going to sundance.
  • You can bullshit your way into almost any party without RSVP. The staff they hire aren't professional doormen, they're regular people like you and I.
  • Get up early and go see some films. The parties and nightlife are fun but it's a really special experience to see a world premiere of a masterpiece at Sundance.
  • For late night food get a double burger at Davanza's.
  • Dress warm, it gets really cold at night and you will end up outside at some point.





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