Sundance Film Festival updates Covid protocols, will require booster shots for attendees
Los Angeles, Dec 24 (FN Agency) The Sundance Film Festival, the largest independent film festival in the US, has updated the COVID-19 protocols for its 2022 gathering in response to the rapidly spreading Omicron variant. Sundance will require all in-person attendees — employees, volunteers, contractors, general public, artists, partners, press, and industry — to be fully vaccinated, with all those who are eligible under CDC guidelines to have received booster shots. “The health safety of our community is paramount,” Sundance organizers said in a press release. The upcoming edition, which runs from January 20 through 30, will be a hybrid event that has “flexibility for attendees to participate in-person and/or online.” Other protocols include reduced venue capacity for festival screenings and events, as well as no eating or drinking in theaters. Festival-operated non-theater venues, including The Craft, The Filmmaker Lodge, The Box and The Shop, will have reduced capacity and food and beverages will not be permitted in these spaces during public programming, variety.com reported.
Attendees will also be required to wear masks in all venues and lines. Guests will be encouraged to continue wearing masks indoors when in public places or private shared spaces for parties or receptions, especially when not actively eating/drinking. Even if Utah movie theaters are operating at 100% capacity, if the location is screening any Sundance titles, those cinemas will adhere to the fest’s reduced attendance Covid policies. Sundance’s updated safety measures for the 2022 edition come as many Hollywood events in the next month are either postponing (i.e. the Critics Choice Awards, Book of Boba Fett premiere, AFI Luncheon) or simply cancelling (the BAFTA tea, Palm Springs Film Festival in-person awards gala). The Sundance Institute has partnered with PandemSafe to offer free tests to all participants and community members at specific vaccine verification and testing hubs located around the festival. Employees, volunteers and on-site contractors are required to be tested at check-in and mid-way through the festival and encouraged to test every 48 hours throughout.
Artists, press and industry are required to be tested within 48 hours prior to arrival or upon arrival. Additional testing is required for participation in private events, with artists tested in advance of participating in Q&A’s, programming, and press lines. Both PCR and rapid antigen tests will be offered and accepted as proof of a COVID-19 test. Additionally, any FDA-approved COVID-19 test that displays a valid date and time of test taken and valid lab result will be accepted. Sundance organizers said it will continue to “monitor the general levels of community transmission and local COVID-19 vaccination coverage in our in-person communities, working to maximize their health safety and adjust any plans as needed for the safety of our community.”