In addition to being vaccinated, the 2022 Sundance Film Festival will now also require attendees to receive a booster shot if they are eligible, the festival announced on Thursday.
The 2022 Sundance Film Festival will be a hybrid event this year, and the festival previously announced it would return to physical screenings in Park City, while also continuing with online premieres that will follow films’ physical premieres in Utah. As always, films will premiere in the first half of the festival between Jan. 20-25 and will be followed by additional screenings and events through the end of the festival on Jan. 30. Awards will be announced on Friday, Jan. 28.
Additionally, theaters at the 2022 Festival will operate at reduced capacity with no eating or drinking permitted in theaters. Festival-operated non-theater venues will have reduced capacity for public programming at The Craft, The Filmmaker Lodge, The Box and The Shop and food and beverages will not be permitted in these spaces during public programming.
Sundance Institute will offer free testing to all participants and community members at specific Vaccine Verification and Testing Hubs located around the Festival.
The 2021 festival had a record 600,000 people attend virtually and via hub events across the country. In February, the Sundance Institute said the seven-day festival reached a total audience of 2.7 times (168%) more than the typical 11-day version in Utah in 2020 and was viewed in 50 states and 120 countries. Specifically, Sundance said there were 251,331 views of feature and short films and Indie Series through the festival’s online platform or TV apps. The festival then counted an estimated two people per household watching its films, reaching an estimated half a million people.