When the Sundance Movie Pageant starts in Boulder, Colorado, on Jan. 21, 2027, tens of 1000’s of filmmakers and moviegoers will descend at the metropolis. The inflow of movie aficionados will convey an issue acquainted to towns that host huge occasions: The ones out-of-town guests will all want accommodation on the identical time.
Boulder has historically had restrictive regulations round temporary leases. Town replied to the accommodation force by means of growing a brand new condo license in April 2026 that quickly expands who can be offering temporary accommodation all through the development.
Through permitting moment houses and tenant-occupied homes to go into the accommodation marketplace, the coverage may develop who earns accommodation source of revenue and unfold customer spending throughout extra Boulder neighborhoods.
As an city and regional economist in Colorado, I find out about housing coverage and native public finance. I’m specifically interested by how native governments function laboratories of democracy – and who advantages and bears the prices in their coverage experiments.
Park Town, Utah, hosted the Sundance Movie Pageant for over 40 years.
Vivien Killilea/Getty Photographs
Accommodation coverage for a predictable call for spike
Sundance is an 11-day annual competition that showcases impartial storytelling by means of that includes dramatic and documentary movies, shorts, premieres and filmmaker discussions. After greater than 4 many years in Utah, Sundance is making Boulder its new domestic.
In Utah in 2025, Sundance reported 85,472 in-person attendees, together with just about 28,000 guests from out of doors the state. No longer all attendees require accommodation or consult with on the identical time. Even so, that scale is huge relative to Boulder’s current accommodation capability.
Consistent with Boulder Town Council paperwork, there are kind of 2,900 lodge rooms and 685 usual temporary condo licenses in Boulder.
Accommodations are typically constructed to deal with call for that persists right through the 12 months or recurs predictably throughout seasons. Developing sufficient lodge rooms to deal with the Sundance top would depart many rooms empty the remainder of the 12 months. Alternatively, houses and spare bedrooms can input the accommodation marketplace quickly, then go back to residential use.
Boulder’s peculiar temporary condo regulations require a residing to be the landlord’s most important place of abode, which means an proprietor will have to occupy the residing for greater than part the 12 months. The ones restrictions are meant to forestall houses from being transformed into full-time vacationer lodging.
The brand new Pageant Accommodation Apartment License, designed in particular for Sundance, expands the preexisting regulations. Any assets possession kind might qualify, together with nonprimary flats, reminiscent of moment houses and long-term leases. Hosts might hire a complete domestic, a unmarried room or a smaller secondary residing area at the assets, reminiscent of a yard cottage or an in-law suite.
Pageant leases are capped at 29 general days in step with 12 months. They may be able to function simplest all through a city-approved window overlaying the ten days ahead of and the 9 days after the competition.
The brand new coverage is meant to fortify Boulder’s financial system and scale back visitors and emissions from other folks staying out of doors the town, all whilst protecting maximum houses basically for citizens.
Town officers have estimated that the coverage may upload greater than 1,000 competition leases by means of 2027, on most sensible of current temporary condo licenses. Exact participation relies on myriad elements like condo costs, proprietor consent, house owners’ affiliation regulations and citizens’ willingness to go away or proportion their houses.
One early temporary condo checklist exceeded $60,000 for 10 nights in Boulder, as reported by means of CBS Colorado.
Who advantages from the competition
Sundance’s transfer to Boulder was once supported by means of really extensive public incentives. As an example, a contemporary Colorado regulation makes a qualifying world movie competition eligible for as much as US$34 million in refundable tax credit from 2027 to 2036. This tax credit score reduces state earnings. For the reason that credit scale back state sources, the commercial case relies partially on whether or not Sundance generates sufficient new wages, industry source of revenue and tax earnings in Colorado to justify that public price.
Sundance’s commissioned 2025 file estimated that out-of-state guests spent over $160 million in Utah. As tourism economists have lengthy warned, gross spending simply signifies the size of monetary job – and now not how a lot the host metropolis advantages.
On this context, native advantages would come with further wages earned by means of native staff, income retained by means of in the neighborhood owned companies, and tax earnings gained by means of native governments. No longer each and every customer greenback produces such advantages. Some earnings in the long run flows to nonlocal providers. Pageant-related gross sales will also be offset if guests displace vacationers who in a different way would have come, or if citizens steer clear of crowded spaces and shift their standard spending to all over again or position.
Two research display that temporary leases may also be particularly precious to customers and hosts when main occasions pressure lodge capability. One discovered that Airbnb created its greatest financial advantages to guests and hosts when resorts have been just about complete, reminiscent of New York Town on New 12 months’s Eve. Some other documented a identical impact round Austin, Texas’ SXSW Movie & TV Pageant when further home-sharing listings diminished resorts’ top pricing energy. Through offering puts to stick exactly when call for surges, temporary leases reason lodge costs to upward push not up to they in a different way would.
Essentially the most direct beneficiaries of Boulder’s new temporary condo coverage will likely be hosts. Accommodations would ordinarily seize a lot of the source of revenue generated by means of scarce accommodation. Boulder’s coverage opens a few of that chance to house owners, second-home homeowners and, with the landlord’s permission, tenants.
Pageant advantages can lengthen past accommodation to the native industry group. A find out about in New York Town discovered that higher Airbnb job greater eating place employment in surrounding neighborhoods, most probably as a result of visitors spent cash close to the place they stayed. That means competition leases may unfold competition attendees right through the Boulder space and now not simply close to current resorts and competition screening venues.
When Sundance was once deciding on its subsequent host metropolis, Colorado Governor Jared Polis mentioned competition officers evaluated lodge capability past Boulder, as reported by means of Subsequent 9News.
Do coverage guardrails topic?
The similar temporary leases that upload accommodation all through a requirement spike can create housing issues if houses stay within the vacationer marketplace in a while. Nationwide analysis means that Airbnb enlargement can transfer devices from the long-term to the temporary marketplace, contributing to better rents and residential costs.
There could also be proof from the 2017 sun eclipse that even transient will increase in call for for temporary leases may end up in a chronic building up in native Airbnb listings. Alternatively, the constraints on Boulder’s new Pageant Accommodation Apartment License prohibit this chance by means of proscribing leases to a city-approved match window.
After the 2027 competition, Boulder officers can start comparing the coverage on 3 dimensions: Did it upload significant accommodation capability? Have been the commercial advantages shared amongst tenants, staff, companies and neighborhoods? And did it offer protection to the long-term housing provide?
If Boulder have been to put up complete information, it will lend a hand different jurisdictions confronting identical temporary call for surges.
