PARK CITY, Utah — Park City is gearing up for its final Sundance Film Festival, but many were surprised to see that the Egyptian Theatre wasn’t on the list for screenings.
“Right away, actually, in one of our board meetings, I reached out to one of the programmers and said, 'What the heck?'” said Rhonda Sideris, president of Park City Lodging. “This is Sundance — it's the Egyptian Theatre. Every single picture that you see of Sundance is a picture of the marquee.”
The theater hosted the very first Sundance when it moved to Park City in 1981.
“We definitely had a few people calling in and asking why we're not doing it, and bummed out that we're not offering it,” said marketing manager Maclane Vipond, "since we've been part of Sundance since its inception.”
Theater director and manager Randy Barton said it was a mutual decision.
“We are not a film organization, and when we talked to Sundance about their leaving, we made the decision together to remove everything that makes a movie theater a movie theater, projection and sound and the lighting and the equipment,” he said.
Their goal is to focus on panels, live performances, and Robert Redford tributes instead.
“They have plenty of screening rooms in Park City, but we are going to be true to who we are, which is live performance,” Barton said.
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Some, however, feel it won’t be the same this year.
“Without having the Egyptian Theatre being involved in Sundance,” Sideris said, "I’m afraid that upper Main Street is really going to suffer and there's nothing happening on Main Street this year.”
When Sundance leaves, however, the theater won’t be worried about the revenue.
“I kind of expect that to be the theme going forward, where we'll just have people in town for skiing, and when they're kind of tired of skiing or they don't have the right conditions, they can come see a show,” Vipond said.
The final Sundance Film Festival kicks off on Jan. 22.
