What Boulder's Theaters Keep After Sundance Leaves Town

"Film is in our DNA because it was a film house," Z2 Entertainment CEO Cheryl Liguori told Sundance about the Boulder Theater. Its Art Deco building opened as a movie house in 1936, and it is now getting a new cinema sound system and screen. The Daily Camera's venue-by-venue report quoted her.

Most of the festival's other rooms can't make that claim. Only three of the 11 primary screening venues for the 2027 festival regularly show films. The rest were built for high school plays, choral concerts and lectures. The festival runs January 21 to 31. The theater work running ahead of it is spread across downtown, the CU campus, the Dairy Arts Center and Chautauqua. For Boulder residents, the longer-lasting result of Sundance's arrival is a set of civic rooms that come out of this winter able to show films properly. Sundance's director of technical exhibition, Holden Payne, said the targeted upgrades will leave several local spaces with "long-term improvements."

Eight Rooms Getting Cinema Gear

Sundance says its venues sit within roughly a two-mile radius. Most of them are places Boulder residents already know from school plays, concerts and talks.

Venue	Its usual life	What's changing
Macky Auditorium, 1595 Pleasant Ave.	CU's largest indoor concert hall, completed 1922	Dolby Atmos built from scratch, new screen, balcony projection booth, stage ramp, accessible seating
Roe Green Theatre, 1515 Central Campus Mall	CU theater and dance	Dolby Atmos, ceiling speakers, new screen, replacement for 1980s seats; work slated to wrap in October
Muenzinger Auditorium, 1905 Colorado Ave.	Home of the International Film Series since 1941	Wall speaker arrays, new screen with speakers behind it, accessible seating
eTown Hall, 1535 Spruce St.	Former church turned music venue, opened as eTown Hall in 2012	Projector, perforated screen, Dolby Atmos with 40 new speakers and six amplifiers
Gordon Gamm Theater, Dairy Arts Center	Live theater and dance	Projector on a trolley, speakers, acoustic treatment, new seats
Boulder High School Auditorium, 1604 Arapahoe Ave.	School events; longtime Boulder International Film Festival venue	Projector, screen, lighting, accessibility work, seats
Casey Middle School Auditorium, 1301 High St.	School auditorium	Mechanical, electrical, accessibility, seating, window and plumbing work
Chautauqua Auditorium, 100 Morning Glory Dr.	Open-air summer venue built in 1898	Insulation, radiant floors on geothermal heat, removable insulated wall panels

Some of these details show how much adapting the rooms need. At eTown Hall, a round stained-glass window sat directly behind the new projection booth. The window was removed and rebuilt with optical glass in its center so the beam can pass through, eTown's Chris Coomey told the Daily Camera. The Gordon Gamm's projector rolls on a trolley so it can be moved out of the way when dance and theater return. Several of these upgrades are designed to work for the rooms' regular uses as well as for film. CU says Macky's system can switch between Dolby Atmos for film and enhanced sound for concerts, and that Roe Green's new ceiling speakers will serve campus users beyond Sundance.

Some of the work started before Sundance chose Boulder. The Boulder Valley School District began the Boulder High auditorium project with money from its voter-approved 2022 bond, and Casey's HVAC upgrades were finished in summer 2025. In BVSD's August update, Boulder High's new seats were still waiting to be installed.

Muenzinger's Upgrade Is Already in Use

You don't have to wait for January to hear the difference. Before the renovation, Muenzinger showed films on a curved wall coated with screen paint, and speakers were wheeled into place for each screening. The new screen and sound system are now in regular use. IFS director Jason Phelps put "Whiplash" on the fall schedule to show off the new audio and welcome Sundance, the Daily Camera reported in August.

The rest of the fall 2026 schedule has more than 50 films. Coming up:

Oct. 14: "King Kong," part of a 50th-anniversary run of the three main versions
Oct. 21: Environmental Shorts Program
Oct. 25: "The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra"
Oct. 27: "Leviticus"
Nov. 16: "The Big Lebowski," with the film's sound editor, Skip Lievsay, in person
Dec. 4: "Night of the Lepus," a film about giant rabbits that Phelps counts among his all-time favorites

General admission is $10, and CU students and seniors pay $8. A 10-film punch card costs $65, and you get in free on your birthday. Even counting the punch card's free admissions, a semester of IFS costs about as much as two Sundance single tickets at $37 each, and the screening room is the same one Sundance will use in January.

Across town, the Dairy's Boedecker Theater already runs as a year-round arthouse cinema, showing films Wednesday through Sunday. Its series include Classics with Jeffrey Kash, Friday Night Weird, the Boulder Jewish Film Festival and the Mimesis Film Festival. "The Big Cheese" plays Oct. 14 to 18, with tickets from $7 to $14. For Sundance, the Boedecker is getting a new screen with smaller perforations. Dairy executive director Melissa Fathman told the Daily Camera, "The smaller those holes are, the better the picture quality." The Dairy is also Sundance's main home for New Frontier, its program of experimental work that combines film, art and technology.

Chautauqua Gets a Winter Season

Chautauqua's change is the largest, and it was already underway before Sundance signed on. The Colorado Chautauqua Association started the winterization project first. Its campaign materials say the work will add more than 200 potential programming days a year to an auditorium that has mostly operated in warm weather. Chautauqua CEO Shelly Benford told CBS Colorado, "I'm just so happy that we can more than double the opportunities."

Chief operating officer Jason Hill told the Daily Camera in September that the project was on schedule. Crews are finishing the basement buildout and interior work, starting the geothermal bore field and integrating the mechanical systems. Inspections and commissioning are expected by mid-December, and year-round operation starts with Sundance.

The published cost figures don't match. The association's campaign brochure lists an $11.5 million investment, while CBS Colorado described a $17 million renovation that still needed its final $7 million raised. Neither source explains the gap. No winter or spring 2027 shows have been named for the auditorium yet, so the first concrete date on its new calendar is Sundance itself.

Ticket Timing for Locals

Utah residents had a resident-only Locals Ticket Package, priced at $675 for the 2026 festival. Boulder won't have an equivalent. Jeff Levine, Sundance's head of audience development and experience, told the Daily Camera that no pass or package is limited to Boulder or Colorado residents. That's a change from January, when the Daily Camera's report on the city agreement described "specialized festival tickets for Colorado residents." According to Levine, three packages were designed with locals in mind, though anyone can buy them:

Matinee, $350: 10 screenings starting before 5 p.m., Jan. 25 to 29
Second Half, $450: 10 screenings, Jan. 27 to 31
Encore, $675: 10 screenings, excluding each film's first public showing

None of the three include opening-weekend premieres. World premieres run Jan. 21 to 26. The full-festival 10-ticket package costs $925, and single tickets are $37. Levine's advice for casual viewers is to skip packages and buy single tickets, unless you're going with a group. Key dates:

Oct. 15: Public package sales open.
December: Lineup announced. Registration for Ignite, the $15-ticket program for students and ages 18 to 25, opens Dec. 8 at 10 a.m.
Jan. 7: Package holders start choosing screenings.
Jan. 8, 10 a.m. MT: Single tickets go on sale.

You can also attend without a ticket. Levine said most talks and conversations will be free, with seating on a first-come, first-seated basis, and some New Frontier programs will be free as well. Those sessions will take place in the downtown and campus rooms that host talks, including Old Main, CU's first building, and the Canyon Theater at Boulder Public Library, which Sundance is calibrating to Dolby cinema standards. Cinemark Century Boulder on Twenty Ninth Street is a festival venue too, but it is reserved for press and industry screenings.

Getting Around in January

Most festival venues don't have their own parking, so the City of Boulder is asking attendees to park once and use the HOP, SKIP, JUMP and a Chautauqua Connector. Local buses to festival destinations are expected every 10 to 15 minutes. The HOP will be fare-free, with hours matched to the festival schedule, and the city plans to offer up to 5,000 shared e-bike passes. Visit Boulder counts more than 3,300 free spaces at Twenty Ninth Street and more than 2,600 city-managed downtown spaces, most of which are already free on weekends.

Boulder County expects temporary travel impacts near venues and along US 36, CO 7, CO 93 and CO 119. Specific road closures, shuttle routes and final parking rules haven't been published. The city says detailed route and parking information is still to come. After the festival, the next major event on the film calendar is the Boulder International Film Festival, April 8 to 11, 2027. Its official page doesn't list 2027 venues, though Boulder High's auditorium has hosted the festival for years.

At MCM Collective, we follow changes like these closely because a winterized Chautauqua or a renovated hall a few blocks away changes the year-round calendar of the blocks around it. If you're curious how new year-round activity near Chautauqua, the Dairy or downtown might factor into your home's value, request a home valuation and we'll go through it with you.