Sundance in Boulder 2027: Dates, Venues and a Private Chef at Your Rental

The Sundance Film Festival is coming to Boulder. After decades in Park City, Utah, the 2027 festival runs January 21 to 31 in Boulder, Colorado. It is the first edition here. Filmmakers, studios, press and fans will fill hotels and rental homes for those eleven days. We are a private chef and catering company based in Denver, about 30 minutes away, and Boulder is part of our regular work. This guide covers the official dates, the venues, tickets, where people stay, and how to get dinner handled at the rental.

The dates: January 21 to 31, 2027

Sundance has set the shape of the eleven days. World premieres run from Thursday, January 21, through Tuesday, January 26, and screenings continue to the end of the festival. The festival gala is Friday, January 22. Jury and audience awards are announced Friday, January 29.

For anyone outside Colorado, online screenings run Thursday, January 28, through Sunday, January 31, anywhere in the U.S. Press and industry get online access from Wednesday, January 27. If your group is here for the premieres, the first six days are the full ones, and the days run long.

Where the films screen

Sundance says its Boulder venues all sit within about a 2-mile radius. The announced theaters are the Boulder Theater, Chautauqua Auditorium, eTown Hall, the Boedecker and Gordon Gamm theaters at the Dairy Arts Center, the Boulder High School and Casey Middle School auditoriums, and three University of Colorado Boulder halls: Macky Auditorium, Muenzinger Auditorium and the Roe Green Theatre. Cinemark Century Boulder is the press and industry screening venue.

Talks and other programs are set for Old Main on the CU campus, the Canyon Theater at the Boulder Public Library, the Dairy Arts Center and eTown Hall. A footprint map is on the festival site.

Tickets and the lineup

The films are not announced yet. Sundance says the lineup comes in December. Passes and ticket packages go on sale in October, and single-film tickets in early January. Visit Boulder says package holders pick their screenings in early January too. Sundance Institute members and donors get early access to ticket sales. Check sundance.org before you plan a night around a screening.

Where to stay: hotels, rentals and a new city license

Sundance keeps a lodging site, lodging.sundance.org, with hotels and short-term rentals in and around Boulder, plus options in Denver and nearby towns. It says the list is updated as more places are added. Visit Boulder projects more than 5,000 hotel rooms within ten miles of Boulder by 2027. For a group, a rental house adds what a hotel room cannot: a living room for a screening party, a kitchen for a cast dinner, and a quiet table for a long conversation.

The City of Boulder created a Festival Lodging Rental License for this. It lets Boulder homeowners rent out their homes during approved festivals, and tenants in homes with a long-term rental license can apply with the owner's consent. The city lists the 2027 Sundance Film Festival as the only approved festival so far, with the license usable from January 11 to February 9, 2027. The details are on the city's festival lodging license page.

Getting around, and January weather

Sundance says walking, scooters, e-bikes and Boulder's local buses connect all the venues, and regional buses link Denver and its airport to that system. Visit Boulder puts Denver International Airport about a 45-minute drive away, with the RTD AB1 bus running from the airport to the Downtown Boulder Transit Station. The City of Boulder plans free HOP bus service for festival goers, timed to the festival schedule.

On weather, Visit Boulder says January usually brings Boulder's lightest snowfall, with daytime highs around 47°F and snow that comes and goes. Boulder sits at 5,430 feet. Pack for cold nights between screenings.

Restaurants, and dinner at the rental

Sundance counts more than 100 restaurants in the heart of Boulder and about 400 citywide, and Visit Boulder plans guides to dining near each theater. When the screening schedule runs late, a reservation for a big group is hard to time.

A private chef in Boulder comes to the rental with the groceries, cooks in your kitchen, serves the table and leaves it clean. That can be one dinner after the gala, or breakfast through dinner for the whole festival, with meals timed around screenings that start and end at odd hours. Dietary menus run in parallel: plant-forward, gluten-free and dairy-free at the same table is routine.

Screening parties, brand dinners and longer stays

Some groups need more than a dinner. For a screening party, a reception or a cast and crew dinner, catering in Boulder brings the chef team, service staff, rentals coordination and cleanup in one written number. Full-service catering starts at $150 a person, with family style and buffet formats from $115.

For brand dinners, sponsor events and company hosting, corporate catering in Boulder runs $115 to $250 per person by service style, all inclusive. Staying the whole festival, or longer? Weekly meal prep in Boulder is priced by the chef's hour, $75 an hour with groceries at cost, so the fridge is stocked for the days with no time to eat. We sign NDAs on request.

What it costs, and how booking works

A private chef in Boulder starts at $150 per person, all-inclusive. Most dinners land between $150 and $250 a head. A multi-day festival stay is quoted as one written number for the stay, built from a day rate. That number covers the menu, the groceries at cost, the cooking, the service and the cleanup. Scenario numbers are in the private chef pricing guide.

Festival dates fill early, and we can book closer. Send the dates, the headcount, where you are staying and the meals you want covered. A written all-inclusive proposal comes back within 24 hours, and the date is held once the deposit is in.

The festival spent decades in Park City, and Chef Steve has cooked Sundance receptions there, so late screenings and shifting guest counts are nothing new to us. If you still have a Park City trip on the calendar this winter, see our private chef in Park City page.