Boulder hotels appear booked for Sundance, but officials paint a different picture (original) (raw)
Sundance is still more than seven months away from its Boulder debut, but the festival’s most pressing logistical question has already arrived: Where is everyone going to sleep?
Recent research for Boulder hotel rooms during the Sundance Film Festival, in Boulder from Jan. 21-31, 2027, turns up a patchwork of sold-out listings, blocked calendars, unavailable dates, unpublished rates, waitlists and a few rooms priced well above what a January visitor might otherwise expect to pay.
We searched every booking page and made phone calls to every Sundance-recommended hotel in Boulder listed at lodging.sundance.org and at the official Visit Boulder website. Listing information showed limited availability for the full festival window, though the results varied by property. Boulder Marriott, Residence Inn by Marriott Boulder Canyon Boulevard, Moxy Boulder and Courtyard by Marriott Boulder were listed as “sold out” in public searches. Other properties, including Hotel Boulderado, St Julien Hotel & Spa and Chautauqua, showed blocked dates or unavailable booking calendars, while Embassy Suites by Hilton Boulder, Hilton Garden Inn Boulder, Homewood Suites by Hilton Boulder and Foot of the Mountain Motel showed no rooms available for the full festival period.
The St Julien hotel & Spa located on Walnut Street in Boulder on June 5, 2026. (Joel Solis/Staff Photographer)
A small number of properties did show rooms available. A-Lodge listed rooms at 124.40pernightforthefullJan.21−31window,whileComfortInnshowedavailabilityat124.40 per night for the full Jan. 21-31 window, while Comfort Inn showed availability at 124.40pernightforthefullJan.21−31window,whileComfortInnshowedavailabilityat743 per night. Hyatt Place Boulder/Pearl Street showed rooms ranging from 1,005to1,005 to 1,005to1,350 per night.
Charlene Hoffman, CEO of Visit Boulder, the city’s convention and visitors bureau, said those public searches do not necessarily show the full lodging picture.
“At this stage in the festival booking process, many hotels have not yet released their full inventory for festival dates, and some properties may temporarily block rooms while they finalize pricing strategies, group allocations, staffing plans or contractual commitments related to the festival,” Hoffman said. “This can create the appearance of limited availability or unusually high pricing early in the process.”
Hoffman said that process is common for major events and does not mean the community is sold out or that more affordable options will not become available.
“We expect additional hotel inventory to come online over time as the Festival approaches,” she added.
Sundance will move to Boulder next year after decades of hosting the festival in Park City, Utah, bringing one of the country’s best-known independent film gatherings to Colorado for the first year of a 10-year agreement.
The move has already prompted questions about whether Boulder’s lodging market can absorb the festival’s hefty mix of filmmakers, industry workers, sponsors, staff, press, volunteers and regular filmgoers — especially as early research shows that some hotels may seem difficult to book.
Paula DuPré Pesmen, managing director of festival and institute operations at the Sundance Film Festival and Boulder-based Oscar-winning filmmaker, said Sundance has an allocation of rooms for filmmakers, festival regulars, volunteers, sponsors and staff.
“Given the massive undertaking of building a new festival in a new home, we needed to ensure that some who are critical to the experience would be here, including those who support, bring and buy films,” DuPré Pesmen said.
DuPré Pesmen said Sundance anticipates releasing remaining rooms in mid-July, except for those reserved for filmmakers, volunteers and jurors.
This distinction matters because an online search showing “not available” rarely means “sold out.” A room may simply be unreleased, held for a group block, or awaiting final pricing — a pattern playing out at hotels across the city.
Like at Basecamp Boulder, where Jon Crider, a front desk agent at the hotel, said that the hotel has not yet published rates for the Sundance dates and is instead adding interested guests to a waitlist.
“We are adding them to the waiting list in order,” Crider said. “When we are ready to publish our rates, we start and work down until the waiting list is then all called.”
Basecamp Boulder has 48 rooms. The hotel had eight people on its Sundance waitlist as of June 1, though Crider noted some callers have asked about booking large blocks of rooms. While he estimated rates could be released within a month or two, he acknowledged the delay is tactical.
“The probability of how this works is that all the hotels try to wait and see what everybody else is doing, and then we try to be competitive in there,” Crider said.
Boulder hotels have also made a broader commitment around festival lodging, according to Hoffman, of Visit Boulder. Local hotels have committed to allocating 70% of their inventory during the festival at affordable rates, Hoffman said.
“Because Boulder’s occupancy is historically at its lowest point in January, this is a long-term commitment to the festival’s success in Boulder and the economic health of our community during the winter season,” Hoffman said.
For Sundance, lodging affordability was one reason for leaving Park City. The festival’s longtime Utah home had become increasingly expensive for attendees, including the independent filmmakers and regular festivalgoers who are central to Sundance’s identity, DuPré Pesmen said.
“One of the main reasons we moved the Festival to Boulder was the ever-increasing cost of lodging for our attendees, so it’s been very much on our minds, from a long-term sustainability perspective,” DuPré Pesmen said.
Still, early private lodging prices in Boulder have already caused concern. DuPré Pesmen said Sundance has received reports of short-term rental managers charging five to 15 times higher than Park City and has heard frustration from the independent film community.
While Sundance does not control private lodging prices, DuPré Pesmen said more affordable units are becoming available each day, and the festival hopes local renters will be reasonable with pricing and flexibility.
The hotel picture is only one part of Boulder’s Sundance lodging plan. The city has also opened its rules for short-term rental licenses, a move intended to add more temporary accommodations during the festival period.
Hoffman said there are now more than 1,000 short-term and festival rental license holders, with 200 more in process. Because every 200 rooms made available through the program is roughly equivalent to adding another hotel, this private inventory is expected to drastically narrow the city’s lodging gap, Hoffman said.
The hotel Boulderado located on 13th Street in Boulder on June 5, 2026. (Joel Solis/Staff Photographer)
DuPré Pesmen echoed this, noting that hundreds of applications have flooded in since the city’s updated Festival Lodging Rental License ordinance took effect last month. While more than 1,000 units are already live on sites like Airbnb, she said most property management companies and private renters are expected to roll out their inventory in October and November.
Regional lodging is also expected to be part of the solution. DuPré Pesmen said some attendees are already choosing to stay in Denver, where there are more lodging options and competitive prices. Transportation options are expected to include free shuttle service to and from Denver, along with parking in Boulder, she said.
The official Sundance lodging platform also points beyond Boulder. The platform lists 196 properties under a Boulder destination search for Jan. 21-31, 2027, though the list included a mix of Boulder hotels, regional hotels, inns, motels and private rental properties across the Front Range.
Park City’s experience offers some useful context, though not a perfect comparison.
Dan Howard, vice president of communications at the Park City Chamber of Commerce, said Park City had about 4,000 rooms during its Sundance years, though many festivalgoers also stayed in Salt Lake City, about 25 minutes away, where there was substantially more lodging.
Howard said it was not common in Park City for hotel rooms to appear limited or unavailable several months before Sundance, as they currently are with Boulder in some searches, but he cautioned that the cities are not identical.
“I think we have a substantially larger room block than what Boulder is looking at,” Howard said.
After a decade and a half in Park City, Howard said late bookings were common during Sundance, with some visitors calling in early January after forgetting the festival was approaching.
Boulder’s first year, he said, will likely create its own habits as visitors figure out where to stay, how far they are willing to travel and how the festival’s new geography works.
“I think it’s going to have its own pattern,” Howard said. “People aren’t going to know where, when, why, how it works there.”
He said some attendees may experiment with staying in Boulder, Broomfield, Denver or even near Denver International Airport, depending on schedules, transportation plans and priorities.
That first-year uncertainty is part of the larger transition. Sundance’s move to Boulder has been discussed in terms of venues, transportation, economic impact and the city’s growing role in the national film world. But before the first premiere or standing ovation, the city has to figure out where everyone is going to crash.
For now, officials from Visit Boulder and Sundance say Boulder is not necessarily booked up, even if early hotel searches make it look that way.
Keep up to date on all of our Sundance news at dailycamera.com/sundance.
The Moxy Boulder hotel located on Pleasant Street in Boulder on June 5, 2026. (Joel Solis/Staff Photographer)
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The Moxy Boulder hotel located on Pleasant Street in Boulder on June 5, 2026. (Joel Solis/Staff Photographer)