As we all know the Sundance season brings a lot of energy into the town, much of which can be very chaotic. Sundance has a huge influence on typical local conveniences and locals will share all kinds of opinions as to how they feel about Sundance, despite its wonderful events.

Usually the first thing you will hear from a local is that traffic and parking become a huge hassle. You may also hear about the crowding along Main Street, and difficulty making dinner reservations. How can we prepare the locals during Sundance, and help them to survive the chaos?

Here are some tips from Park City locals:

1.) Add 20 minutes to any 10 min drive.
2.) Make your dinner reservations far in advance, or start cooking at home.
3.) Avoid Main Street parking
4.) USE your parking pass, or sell it to Sundance for $.
5.) You may want to download something “Zen” to play in your car while driving along stop-and-go on the 2-24.
6.) ALWAYS have a camera you never know who you will see.
7.) Now is the time to dig into your costume closet, you’d never know what you can pull off in the Sundance crowds.
8.) Practice patience-especially in the Starbucks line.
9.) If you have a musical talent you may want to show off, work out a way to play along Main Street and make some extra $.
10.) If you’re interested in the scene, GET INVOLVED. Get some friends together to stand in the lines. If you’re not interested, this may be a good time to hibernate.

Park City local Maime Graham said, “I think it’s insane how busy it gets, almost to the point where your best bet would be to take the crowded city bus to get to where you need to go”

It’s true that our free city bus system here in Park City does a fantastic job of getting people to where they need to go, although, good luck finding a seat.

Another local claims that “Park City isn’t used to holding the amount of tourists that come in during the festival. We aren’t the size of New York, and things definitely get crowded”, said Will Mcfarland.

Sundance festival certainly is an exciting time of the year, especially for us locals. Hopefully some of these tips will help us to be more successful over the next couple weeks.