How did festival get so crowded?

When Leigh von der Esch chaired the Sundance Film Festival Committee in 1987, she recalls holding a closing night dinner party "for about 500 people."

Nowadays, you'd be hard-pressed to find a festival screening or events — there are as many as two dozen going on at the same time — with fewer than 500 in attendance.

In fact, Sundance's closing night party "now can barely accommodate the hundreds that wish to attend," says von der Esch, who now serves as managing director of the Utah Office of Tourism.

Such stories are common, as the premier showcase for independent cinema in the United States has grown massive over the course of nearly 30 years.

Last year, 53,000 people attended the festival and poured $61.5 million into the state's economy. Those figures are a far cry from a decade ago. Attendance has exploded. In 1995, the festival attracted, by comparison, a mere 13,500 people, and it shows no signs of slowing down.

To the chagrin of festival founder Robert Redford, Sundance over the years has morphed into a media darling. The former mining town of Park City transforms into a mini-Tinsel Town overnight, turning Main Street into Rodeo Drive for 10 days. Hollywood hot shots and glamorous parties have become a staple, and a large number of festivalgoers don't even catch a movie but prefer to snap pictures of the latest starlet.

Things have certainly come a long way since the initial Utah/U.S. Film Festival, which was held in September 1978.

That weeklong event, which was held at the now-defunct Trolley Corners theaters in Salt Lake City, showcased 65 movies. Only six independent films were featured in competition. The remainder were older films, including Westerns.

By way of comparison, there are more than 120 independently made, feature-length films being screened this year. And there are 64 movies in Sundance's four competition categories, which are divided into dramatic features and documentaries, both for domestic and world cinema.

Dates as to when the festival officially gained its "Sundance" trademark are a little confusing. In 1985, the Sundance Institute took over the festival. In 1990, the institute changed the event's name to the Sundance United States Film Festival, and in 1991 it was renamed again as the Sundance Film Festival.