“So there are tix available to the 1/19 9:45pm premier of Boyhood at Eccles. Individual tickets go on sale tomorrow morning here.
We should probably both try for this.”
That was the last update for our latest trip to Sundance Film Festival. This year the festival is celebrating its thirtieth year, and has continued to stay relevant if not fresh - due to the higher than remembered global film fest retreads — for filmmakers and fans.
Sundance has updated its How to Fest guide once again this year and this includes some changes from previous years.
A couple of new things about this year’s fest has prompted an update from our earlier tips. The most technical is the eWaitlist. The sport has officially been removed from the game. It used to be if you were dedicated enough, sacrificed enough, waited long enough, froze in the cold alleys enough, you could get in to see a film. That had a way of weeding some folks out (us too) and that was good. The eWaitlist is planning on changing that this year. Provided you register, you can now virtual waitlist two hours before a film starts from anywhere you can access the internet. This means iPhone in the warm car, your hotel bed, at dinner or even another film can be where you jump in line. Just show up 30 minutes before show time to make sure your number counts.
Pro: Comfort and possible tech savvy advantages
Con: Longer lines, mostly due to tech stuff
This year also saw a price change in the package offerings introducing the “extra-200-dollars-sold-out-first” premium package A. Money will get you access, or at the very least, comfort and convenience and people snapped it up quick. This and possibly a late call in time, made ticket selection this year miserable. Not wanting vouchers which are useless, we scrambled to plug in our short schedule with 3rd and 4th round draft picks.
Taking a look at the 10 films we ended up ticketed for, it is almost a refreshing break from previous years where we focused on the premiers at Eccles. Our selection has something from almost every category and several that will probably be really awesome.
Reminded of the joy of discovery made us smile, but so did the idea that we will geek out on that eWaitlist and get into the few films that we can’t still get out of our heads.