Sundance was . . . disappointing

Hey y’all,

Happy first day of February. Why is January so damn long, anyway?!

I don’t want to even get into all of the historic geopolitical happenings (for the sake of posterity, Brexit was signed sealed and delivered and Congress all but acquitted the President yesterday). What I’d rather talk about is how I fell off the diet bandwagon (I mean, did I ever really get on?) . . . but now I’m here tracking my meals and working out because “Summer is Coming.”

In my defense, Bae and I did a fair bit of weekend traveling last month, so I kind of get a pass, right? One of the coolest-sounding things we did was go to Sundance over opening weekend - it should have been fun.

But let me tell you what you should never ever do: Go to Sundance over opening weekend.

My friends and I are all huge movie buffs - and this art form holds a very special place in my heart because I have produced two television shows and am currently writing a book that I hope will be turned into a screenplay.

Now that I’ve stopped patting myself on the back, let me tell you all the ways this trip was a bit of a hilarious disaster.

Our friend Robin’s flight was cancelled and rescheduled for the next day because . . . American Airlines . . . and so we all missed the first few screenings.

These flights weren’t cheap, but it was not even close to being our most expensive mode of transportation. After having read all the blogs about “how to fest,” we assumed we could take an Uber from the airport to our hotel. We landed - I checked the prices - and uber told us it would cost 40 bucks. Not ten minutes later, I checked again after getting our luggage, and the price rose to 90 dollars. At this point, I was ready to rent a car, but it was snowing and mama was not trying to be a black snowman on the side of these mountains . . . we figured it would get better the next day but boy were we wrong. We tried to get an uber from our hotel to salt lake and Ms. Uber told us it would cost a whopping $220 dollars. That’s the point when we were mercifully able to find a beat up camry to rent for the rest of the weekend . . . ugh.

Another unnecessary expense for opening weekend - any festival pass that doesn’t cost 4000 dollars. We purchased much cheaper passes that would theoretically get us into some movies and into special venues. Sounds cute, right?

Wrong!

The first night, we tried to go into the ASCAP music cafe and a few of the other venues. Not only did you have to have credentials, but you had to be on a list - these special venues were all booked out for private parties. I must say that the argument for a chase sapphire card was much stronger at the festival. They had a lounge specifically for card holders - and if you were one of the few - you go to drink and dance for free all night.

. . . I was standing outside looking at my AMEX like . . . girl you ain’t shit!

We couldn’t even find a place to eat. We walked up and down the street till we found an amazing pizza parlor that had an hour-long wait. The cute part was they had a waiting room where you could order drinks. Once again, pizza saves the day.

I digress.

We were hoping to not only see movies, but kind of get swept up in the wonderful energy of movie festivals. You, the reader, should know that we have traveled the world to go to various film festivals and have loved all of them. The Berlinale in Berlin is huge but totally accessible. Fastnet in Ireland is a festival owned and operated entirely by women - and is by far one of my favorite festivals. FESPACO in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso was LIT! And my friend Robin’s Dance Film Festival of Greensboro is simply divine.

So . . . it made sense for us to go to Sundance. We love films. We are patrons of the arts.

But it just wasn’t fun . . . for anybody. No one seemed to be having fun. Everybody was scowling.

And if you have ever been to disneyworld without a “skip the line” ticket, then you already know the reason why. There’s a line for literally everything. There’s a line to get on the (free) shuttles, there’s a line to pick up your tickets, there’s a line to cross the street, there’s a line to get into the movie theaters (and if you don’t show up on time which is 30+ minutes early, you will lose your ticket).

Let’s pause right there. I hate to be a living stereotype, but I ain’t neva been on time for nothing. If memory serves me correctly, I believe I was even born two weeks late. At Sundance, you MUST be in the line for your movie NO LATER THAN 30 minutes before the movie begins. Then the people with the super duper secret passes go into the movie first, followed by ticket holders, followed by waitlisters. If, for whatever reason, you lost your place in line, you go to the back of the waitlister line.

Now, at this point, some of you might be thinking that we didn’t do our homework or that we just tried to wing it. Nay, I say. We have been planning this trip since September 2019 and talking about it for years now. I have to say that I was completely overwhelmed by the sheer logistics of the event. To get passes, I had to register online, then I had to get a day/time to purchase festival tickets/passes, then I had to get another day/time to choose what movies I wanted to go to, etc . . . .

Now . . .we had fun, but that’s because we were all friends and stayed at a beautiful swiss-chalet style hotel. We did watch movies eventually, but we had to make it all the way to Salt Lake City to do that . . . because Park City simply wasn’t accessible enough.

To be fair, I heard that the rest of the festival (outside of opening weekend) is quite low-key. So I wouldn’t necessarily discourage folks from going, but the trip is dumb expensive for what you get in return . . . which is an opportunity to stand in really long lines.

If you’re not willing to spend 10 thousand dollars on the weekend, I would simply not go. It’s probably more fun and easier to go to Cannes . . . in France.

Just my two cents. What do you think?

Peace and blessings,

LKB