Slamdance Founder on Why It Was Time to Leave Park City — and Why Sundance Had Nothing to Do with It
This January’s Slamdance Film Festival — Park City, Utah’s other film festival that, for nearly 30 years, shared the mountain town and an early winter date with Robert Redford’s Sundance Film Festival — enjoyed record attendance, up 18 percent from 2023. And yet, even with that high watermark, their 30th anniversary ahead of them, and Sundance contemplating leaving for greener pastures, Slamdance is packing it up and moving West.
Slamdance 2025 will call West Hollywood, California its new home — permanently — and the festival that for years lived in Sundance’s shadow will now try and make it on its own.
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If you ask Peter Baxter, the founder of Slamdance and its president, it was just time to move on from Park City. The news of the festival’s relocation came as a surprise earlier this week, but it’s something they’ve considered for the past several years. And, unlike Sundance, which has a contract with Park City through 2027, Slamdance wasn’t tied down.
“Years ago, we started that, for each year, we would always review Park City and if we wanted to stay there. And we always have until this point,” Baxter told IndieWire during a recent interview. “I think Los Angeles has been in the back of some of our community’s minds for some time.”
But Baxter insists that just because Sundance is exploring new homes, it’s not why Slamdance opted to do the same.
“Sundance’s business is really their business. Our decision has nothing to do with what Sundance is contemplating,” he said. “We’re looking at what we believe is best for our community, for the artists that we want to support now and in the future, and we want to build upon these 30 years that has allowed us to grow in Park City and fully explore what Slamdance is all about in Los Angeles, which is about taking filmmaking to the edge.”
Baxter says quite simply it’s gotten too expensive to be in Park City over the last five to six years, not even necessarily for the festival itself. Rather, it’s really gotten difficult for the filmmakers showing their films who can’t afford to travel to an exclusive, remote mountain town during the height of the ski season and another competing festival.
“We were able to manage that as an organization, but you could see it was becoming increasingly challenging to be able to do that, but we always were then able to find opportunities for our artists,” Baxter said. “The time was right because of just looking at the opportunities that were in front of us in Park City versus the increased opportunities that, I think, are in front of us now in Los Angeles.”
By moving to Los Angeles, Slamdance can bring in more filmmakers, connect them more easily with industry contacts, and become far more accessible, especially for differently-abled artists competing in Slamdance’s Unstoppable section. Festival passes for Slamdance 2025 will be offered for as low as $50, lower than the festival has been able to offer in Utah, and some events will even be free to the public.
Slamdance can also expand its literal reach. Though Slamdance this year took over The Yarrow, a venue generally held by Sundance, it’s still a cozy space. Being in LA will give Slamdance more screens to host more screenings, more physical space for events, and in turn the chance to expand the festival’s program offerings.
“We’re looking at the greater good of independent filmmaking and what independent filmmaking really means to the industry,” Baxter said. “After all, we are in the capital of the entertainment industry. I think that we as a festival could do more to contribute towards building greater value and independent film by showcasing the emerging artists that we do, and that’s going to be a major part of our endeavor.”
There’s no guarantee that Slamdance’s audience will follow them to Los Angeles. They’ll be setting up shop in February next year, right in the thick of awards season. But Baxter says he senses Slamdance can still carve out a space in a crowded LA market. The LA Film Festival is gone, and Outfest is going through its own difficulties, so Slamdance sees an opportunity.
“We take nothing for granted. If the industry members are closer to us than than ever before, it’s going to be really important that we nurture industry relations, to bring them to meet our artists and to really collaborate on how to make independent filmmaking stronger as a whole,” Baxter said. “We don’t take that for granted just because we are geographically now closer that it’s going to happen. This has to be based on nurturing relationships. That is something now that we’re working on and will continue to work on and grow for Slamdance ’25. It won’t just happen in one festival. This is something that needs to be sustained and nurtured.”
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