Make Longmont your base camp for festival week

The 2027 Sundance Film Festival runs January 21 to 31 in Boulder. Every hotel room within walking distance of a venue will be spoken for early, and the ones that are left will cost what festival rooms cost. Sixteen miles up the Diagonal Highway, Longmont is making the case that it should be your base camp instead.

The pitch, in Visit Longmont’s words, is that “the independent spirit isn’t just on the marquee; it’s who we are.” In practice that means a downtown of locally owned restaurants, a dozen-plus breweries and a few award-winning distilleries, boutique shops and maker studios, and a brand-new boutique hotel on Main Street alongside the national chains and budget options. Screenings in Boulder are a twenty to thirty minute drive.

The numbers back it up. When the Daily Camera surveyed Airbnb listings for the festival’s opening night in August 2026, Boulder homes ran from $183 for a townhome to nearly $8,000 for a four-bedroom house, with most in the few hundred dollar range. Longmont listings for the same night sat around $77 to $113 (prices at the time; expect both to climb as the festival nears).

Longmont is not new to Sundance, either. The Longmont Museum has been screening festival films for a while now: a Juneteenth program of shorts curated by the festival in June 2026, and a February 2026 screening of American Pachuco with director Luis Valdez and festival director Eugene Hernandez in the room. This October it hosts Frida, the 2024 Sundance editing-award winner, with director Carla Gutierrez in conversation.

For festival week itself, downtown Longmont businesses are putting together their own programs. Küper Wine Bar on Main Street has daily tastings, a night of film scores with the Longmont Symphony, and an artisan market on the last Saturday. Check the happenings page as more come in.

If you are driving in from Denver International Airport, Longmont is on the way. If you are flying in for the films and staying for the town, it is the town.

Sources: Visit Longmont’s Sundance page; Longmont Museum and Downtown Longmont event listings; Boulder Daily Camera, August 2026.