Omicron Scare: Sundance Film Festival 2022 event to be held virtually

The Sundance Film Festival, scheduled to take place at Park City, Utah, from January 20 to 30, has scrapped its plans for an in-person gathering for 2022. It will now be presented as an exclusively virtual event because of the Omicron surge.

In a joint statement posted on the festival’s website, Joana Vicente, CEO, Sundance Institute, and Tabitha Jackson, Festival Director, said there was no option but to go digital given the rise in the cases.

“We



have been looking forward to our first fully hybrid Sundance Film Festival and our teams have spent a year planning a festival like no other. But despite the most ambitious protocols, the Omicron variant with its unexpectedly high transmissibility rates is pushing the limits of health safety, travel and other infrastructures across the country.

“And so, today we’re announcing: the Festival’s in-person Utah elements will be moving online this year,” the statement read.