Sundance Could Destroy What Is Special About Boulder

I graduated from the University of Colorado in 1975; I lived in Boulder until 2000. A job opportunity moved me to Laguna Beach until the Great Recession of 2009. Of course, I came home! Glad I did. But Boulder was not the same. It became Californicated while I was gone.

In the '70s and '80s, there was no other town in the United States like Boulder, Colorado. It was the destination most young adults wanted to be a part of, like Marin County, California, in the '60s. We were wealthy hippies!

We had enormous respect for our natural environment and the beauty that surrounded us; we were vigilant about protecting that. We were on the cutting edge of the world for sustainability, water protection, forest conservation and energy efficiency. We were leaders.

Wild Oats Market and Alfalfa's put Whole Foods to shame; Wild Oats became so big nationwide it almost purchased Whole Foods. In the end, though, Whole Foods absorbed Wild Oats.

No city has yet built a local public transit system like Boulder did. It has always embraced and esteemed DEI. Always respected gender and sexual preferences.

Very few towns in this nation had a Westword, a Boulder Weekly and a Colorado Daily to supplement the Boulder Daily Camera's main news.

Everyone who came to Boulder in the '90s was chasing that dream. They are still coming, but the dream is over. Like every magical place, economics takes over and destroys the very things that make it such a magical place.

As Chief Niwot proclaimed: "People seeing the beauty of this valley will want to stay, and their staying will be the undoing of the beauty."

So with that background, let's get to the topic at hand.

The Sundance Film Festival is coming to Boulder in January 2027. I assume the planning team hopes that all of the out-of-state students will be out of town. Big assumption; many will not want to miss this event.

Does Broomfield have space to park that many private jets? What about the current noise complaint issues being deliberated in court?

Traffic on U.S. 36 during a snowstorm; not fun. Think I-70 at Silverthorne during a ski weekend snowstorm.

Traffic on Pena Boulevard out of Denver International Airport even with no snowstorm!

Where are you going to park all the cars? Yes, you have world-class public transportation once you are in Boulder County, but where are all the cars that come into the county going to park? People want to have their cars so they can also drive up into the foothills. Public transportation only works in the city proper.

What about all the RVs and "boondogglers"? Panhandlers and the local homeless team?

Most of the talk is about accommodations, which is irrelevant if the parking, traffic and crowd control are not perfectly managed. They're predicting a huge explosion of AirBnB offerings...which will continue after the event and won't be once a year but will become a continual employee housing issue as in Summit County.

Speaking of employees, who is going to provide the labor for this event? Where will they live? Where will they park? January is usually the time when Boulder labor rests.

This is not a Saturday Buffaloes game. This is not a graduation at Folsom Stadium. This is not the Boulder Bolder. This is not the Boulder Creek Festival. This is not Kinetics! This is planning and restructuring a town for the Winter Olympics or Burning Man, in a town that has absolutely not one acre of land to transform.

This is an international multi-day event with people coming early and staying days after.

Boulder can make it happen over time, maybe by year three. But the first year will be a disaster. And it will be so over budget that the festival may not survive future hosting without billionaire philanthropy support.

Which is exactly what the Boulder of the '70s and '80s and '90s wanted to avoid, and the grassroots progressive local harmony was why everyone wanted to live there in the first place.

Sundance might possibly kill that dream forever.

Park City became what it is on the coattails of Sundance. Boulder is already Boulder. Sundance might destroy what is already sacred about it. But yes, an economic boon for Boulder County, no question.

"People seeing the beauty of this valley will want to stay, and their staying will be the undoing of the beauty. "

John Rock now lives in Pagosa Springs.

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