The Sundance Film Festival Theater Where Skis and Snowboards Were Once Sold
The 46th annual Sundance Institute Film Festival opens this weekend in Park City, Utah.
And for the sixth straight year, many of the featured Sundance films will be screened at The Ray, a 500 seat state-of-the-art theater wedged between a grocery store and crossfit studio in a Park City shopping center.
The Ray Theater opened in January 2018 just days before that year’s Sundance Film Festival and after a rapid four month transformation from its previous use:
As a Sports Authority Big Box sporting goods store.
The Sports Authority in Holiday Village was one of Park City’s first ski shops and among the largest local purveyors of skis, snowboards and sporting goods.
But the 26,000 square foot store closed with all 460 other Sports Authority stores after its 2016 bankruptcy.
The space did not stay vacant for long, though.
It had captured the attention of Betsy Wallace, Managing Director of Sundance Institute and the Institute’s Festival Operations Team.
Wallace secured a lease of the property and her team worked with Park City’s municipal planners, the speaker company Dolby and others to transform the site into a 500 seat theater with stadium seating, Dolby Atmos sound, 50 surround speakers, a 4K digital projector, and 35 mm equipment that can screen older films without damaging prints.
Incredibly the sporting goods store-to-theater conversion happened in just four short months.
Sundance secured a certificate of occupancy for the space just one day before its 2018 Festival.
Six years later it will again serve as a prominent venue for the 2024 festival.
And represent the only site that was created via the adaptive reuse of a retail building.