Sundance Film Festival-Locals' Secrets

by: Elizabeth Sedway, Famplosion.com

The 2010 Sundance Film Festival will officially be underway on January 21st. While the festival is a popular tourist event, we've uncovered some of the locals' secrets for this year's festival.

The Park City Box Office, located in the Gateway Center on the corner of Heber Avenue and Swede Alley, officially opened on Jan 9. The 2010 Film Guide is now available at the box office as well as at merchants throughout the Gateway Center.

Tickets to the festival are available online or at the box office starting Jan. 18 at 10 a.m. through Jan. 29. If you aren't able to get the tickets you want because a screening is sold out, your best bet is checking again on the day-of-show. Each morning, the main box offices in Park City and Salt Lake City release a limited number of tickets to that day's screenings at 8 a.m. These tickets must be purchased in person and are not available online or by phone.

After the festival is over each year, the Sundance Institute Film Series presents free screenings of the award-winning films. "Best of Fest" tickets will be distributed, free of charge, to locals Jan. 16-17 at each city's main box office from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and noon to 5 p.m. Sunday. There is a limit of two tickets per person per screening, with a maximum of four tickets total.

Summit County residents are also invited to pick up free tickets to the Jan. 26 screening of "The Tillman Story" to be shown at the Library Center Theatre at 8:30 p.m. Tickets will be distributed on Monday, Jan. 25, from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Park City Main Box Office. A legal Utah ID with a Summit County zip code or a utility bill must be presented. The film is a documentary about professional football star and decorated U.S. soldier Pat Tillman, whose family takes on the U.S. government when their beloved son dies in a "friendly fire" incident in Afghanistan in 2004.