Who's Actually Renting Homes During Sundance? What the Guest Data Shows

When Boulder County homeowners ask us about renting during Sundance, the first question is almost never about the nightly rate. It is about who is going to be standing in their kitchen.

That is a fair question! The Sundance Institute commissions an independent attendee study every year, and the findings are public. We know roughly how old festivalgoers are, where they come from, what they earn, and how they spend their days during the festival. Very little of it matches the picture most owners have in their heads.

Here is who rents homes during Sundance, what the guest data actually shows about them, and what it means for your home between January 21 and 31, 2027.

Sundance Guests are out Watching Films, Not Sitting in Your House

The single most useful fact about a festival guest is how little time they spend indoors at the rental.

Sundance schedules screenings from morning through late evening across multiple venues. Every ticket package sold for 2027 includes 10 screenings over a 10 or 11 day window, which means a guest who bought one has somewhere to be nearly every day. The attendee data backs that up:

• More than three-quarters of 2025 attendees said they did not plan to ski or snowboard during the festival. They were not there for a mountain vacation. They were there for the films.
• Out-of-state attendees averaged 4.1 festival days in 2024, and 85% attended on multiple days.
• Attendees redeemed 130,710 in-person screening tickets in 2025, a 19% jump over the year before.
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For an owner, that pattern shows up as light wear. Fewer meals cooked at home, less laundry, lower utility draw, and a house that sits empty for most of the daylight hours. A festival booking looks less like a ski week and more like a business trip.

Who Actually Rents During Sundance: The Guest Profile

The typical Sundance guest is a college-educated woman in her fifties with a high household income, traveling with one or two other people. That is not a guess. It is what the attendee surveys have found year after year.

From the most recent reports:

• Gender. Women made up roughly two-thirds of the 2025 crowd, and 72% of attendees in 2024.
• Age. Close to 60% of 2024 attendees were 46 or older. The largest single group, at 27%, was 56 to 64.
• Income. A plurality of out-of-state visitors reported household income of $300,000 or more, in both 2024 and 2025. Across all attendees in 2024, 62% reported $100,000 or more.
• Education. 83% held a bachelor's degree or higher in 2024.
• Where they come from. About two-thirds of attendees were in-state residents making a short trip, not long-haul travelers.

That last point is the one Boulder County owners should sit with. Sundance has always drawn most heavily from its own backyard. If the pattern holds in 2027, a large share of your potential guests are Coloradans: Denver and Front Range residents, mountain-town neighbors, and people driving in from an hour or two away for a few days of screenings.

These are people with careers, mortgages, and a credit card on file. They are also repeat customers. In 2024, 89% of attendees said they planned to come back the following year.



Boulder Gives Guests Even More Reason to Leave the House

If festival guests stayed out of their rentals in a mountain town of 8,000 people, they will stay out of them in Boulder as well.

Park City's entire hospitality scene is essentially one street. Boulder has Pearl Street plus a university, a theater circuit, a brewery scene, and Denver 30 miles down the road.

The practical effect is simple. A guest who has an 11:00 a.m. screening, a 3:00 p.m. panel, and a 7:00 p.m. premiere has lunch, coffee, drinks, and dinner to fit in between them, and they are not going to do any of that in your kitchen.

The spending data from Utah says the same thing. In 2025, Sundance attendees spent $53.7 million on recreation and entertainment and $51.2 million on meals. That is money spent outside the rental.

Is it Safe to Rent My Home During The Sundance Film Festival?

Owners and HOA boards tend to name the same three worries. Here is each one against the data.

"My house will get damaged."

This is the most common short-term rental damage concern we hear, and the guest profile is the first answer to it. The average festival guest is in their fifties, traveling with a partner or a friend, and out of the house from mid-morning to late evening. Light use means light wear. The second answer is process: screened guests, a signed rental agreement with occupancy limits, a security deposit or damage protection on every booking, and inspections before and after the stay by a local team that can be at the property in minutes.

"Someone will throw a party in my living room."

The Sundance Film Festival is not a party festival. The industry crowd that fills the sponsor events is a minority of attendees, and most of them are housed by their studios. The people booking whole homes are ticket holders working through a 10-screening package on a schedule that starts in the morning. Boulder's noise ordinance and occupancy rules apply to them like anyone else, and a managed rental carries written house rules, a capped guest count, and a no-events clause.

"A guest will refuse to leave."

A festival booking is a short, dated stay tied to a fixed event window, January 21 to 31, 2027. Guests have return flights, jobs, and in most cases a drive back to Denver or the Front Range. Squatting situations almost always grow out of long, unmanaged, month-plus arrangements, not a one-week festival booking under a signed agreement with a defined checkout date and a manager handling the turnover.

The HOA version of all three.

If your board is uneasy, the useful thing to bring them is not reassurance but specifics: who the guests are, how many are permitted, where they park, who to call, and who inspects the property afterward. Fox provides that in writing before the booking is confirmed.

See Who Would Actually Be Renting Your Home

The question "is it safe to rent my home during Sundance" is really a question about who walks through the door. For most Boulder County owners, the answer is a 50-something professional from Denver or California who is going to be sitting in a theater for most of the week.

Fox has managed Boulder County rentals for more than two decades and is a listed lodging partner for the festival. We will put together a free rental analysis for your property: what your home would earn during the festival window, what kind of guest it would attract, and exactly how the stay is managed from booking to checkout.