Traveling to Park City for Sundance comes at a steep cost to attendees. That issue, Benay said, makes the in-person festival inaccessible to most of its target audience. The Institute’s mission is to find, support, nurture and provide a platform for underestimated artists hailing from diverse backgrounds.
“If we’re only connecting [filmmakers] to one particular type of audience demographic, then we are only doing half our jobs,” Benay said. “You can tell people, ‘Hey, Sundance is for you. But when it costs thousands of dollars to participate at all, then it’s really disingenuous,” she added.
The festival’s more cost effective online screening option means that Benay can honestly tell audiences that Sundance is for them. She also considers the way the Institute speaks to its audiences in its messaging and across social channels.
Why Sundance Institute reconstructed its marketing strategy
Since she took on the role, Benay’s been building out a marketing strategy. The marketing budget increased after she joined. By then, the Institute decided to invest more seriously in full-funnel advertising and audience development.
This year, Benay deconstructed the festival’s Daily Recap production model. Until 2024, the festival aired the recap daily, in theaters. The longform news digest broadcast the previous days’ events, and the theatrical format relied on a 24-hour production window, multiple crews stationed across the event and footage in late-night post production.
“Then, at the end of that, the people that see it are mostly the people already on the mountain. Then we would show clips, maybe on social media and put it on YouTube … but it was really serving an audience that we already had,” she said.
Engagement at this year’s festival also mattered to the festival’s brand partners, who benefit from festival traffic in Park City and launch their own activations amidst the event.
“Fundraising at the festival not only enables us to host the festival every year, but also is a critical piece of our budget for running our year-round artists programs. We do our labs and a lot of the other work that eventually even feeds into the pipeline of the festival,” said Mary Sadeghy, the Sundance Institute’s head of partnerships and co-director of advancement.
Most festival sponsors have had a presence there for at least ten years. Sponsorship entails a donation to the Institute, and a separate cost for its activation. Partners independently handle logistics like securing space on Main Street and planning their own events schedule. Official partners include other festival nonprofits, like Women in Film, to co-host festival events at no extra cost.
