Blyncsy Provides Economic Impact Analytics for 2018 Sundance Film Festival

​​The annual Sundance Film Festival, an eleven day program of Sundance Institute, draws in larger crowds every year. This year the Festival was measured as drawing a record high number of attendees to the state of Utah. With locations throughout Park City and Salt Lake City, as well as Sundance, Utah, the Sundance Film Festival holds many economic implications for the greater Utah area. To gain a better understanding of what occurred at the Festival, Salt Lake tech start-up Blyncsy and Utah-based Y2 Analytics collected and analyzed movement data. The recently released study shows that the 2018 Sundance Film Festival drew in almost 125,000 attendees from around the world and had an economic impact of $191 million on the state of Utah.

"Instead of relying on self-reported attendance, technological advances allow us to take advantage of sensor technology that tracks devices that have Wi-Fi or Bluetooth radios inside of the Festival venues," describes the 2018 economic report (read more here). "This allows us to directly and anonymously observe mobile devices as they enter the Festival, move from venue to venue, and leave. The resulting attendance estimate is both higher and more accurate than previous years."

“Access to insights from reliable, actionable data sources has become paramount to our communities. In our 3-year partnership with Sundance Institute, the economic impact report has been an example of state-of-the-art decision-making in action,” said Blyncsy CEO Mark Pittman.

The Festival has been able to bring a large economic impact to the state of Utah, but estimates of just how much are beginning to be more detailed. This year’s report quotes the importance of the Blyncsy sensors in order to gather data, which has previously been difficult to quantify. These advancements in technology allow for more accurate capture and analysis of movement data through the state. With more accurate representations of this data, all parties involved are able to make more informed decisions on how to improve the experience for all. The study showed that the 2018 iteration of the Sundance Film Festival attracted over 124,900 attendees from 49 states and 26 countries. The Sundance Film Festival supported 3,323 jobs, while generating more than $19 million in state and local tax revenue.

About Blyncsy

Blyncsy is a tech start-up headquartered in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah. Focused on location analytics and big data science, Blyncsy helps its customers understand movement through various environments and enables the future of connected and autonomous vehicles. Blyncsy's Movement Platform assists departments of transportation, cities and other private and public entities to better understand the habits and trends of people by providing insights across data sets. Blyncsy was founded to give cities, companies and leaders better decision-making tools.

Movement. Data. Intelligence.