For the fourth year in a row, Cleveland-based Colortone Sales & Rentals helped stage Robert Redford’s Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, providing audio/visual equipment and staging expertise.
The 13th annual event was held Jan. 16 to Jan. 26 at venues in and around Park City. The festival drew an estimated 20,000 film buffs to sample the 219 films chosen from more than 2,000 submitted. The festival has become so popular since its launch in 1991 that this year, several smaller rival film festivals were staged nearby.
CSR’s affiliation with the world-famous festival began in 2000, when the Sundance Institute, which produces the festival, contacted the company’s Salt Lake City office to rent a couple thousand dollars worth of equipment, says CSR president Bob Leon.
By this year, that relationship had mushroomed into business worth approximately six figures to CSR. The staging and audio/visual solutions company provided sound systems, lighting and video gear for five parties hosted by the Institute for corporate partners including DirecTV, SKYY Vodka, Hewlett-Packard and Blockbuster. CSR also provided equipment for parties hosted by InStyle Magazine, FOX Searchlight film studio, HBO and the Independent Film Channel, Leon says.
Last year, CSR found it challenging to service the Sundance festival, since it took place just a few days before the 2002 Winter Olympics in nearby Salt Lake City and CSR was playing a major role in that event.
“We could have easily said no to Sundance last year,” says Leon. “But we knew that this year, the Olympics would be gone and Sundance would still be here.”
