Volunteering at Sundance: Jan. 20, part 1
On my drive up to Park City last Sunday (Jan. 20) for my second volunteer day at Sundance, I thought "Even a gray day in Utah has bits of blue peeking through the clouds."
I wrote it down once I arrived, along with other notes that will form this (late) post about my experience. Here’s a photo of Highway 189 heading toward Heber, just past Deer Creek State Park.
(That photo is from Saturday the 26th, because I didn’t have a camera on Sunday the 20th and it was a gray, cloudy day anyway)
It was an uneventful hour-long drive, though it did have some white-knuckle parts because driving through canyons with long drop-offs and looming cliffs with big "Falling Rock" signs have never been a particularly delightful thing for me. Chalk that up to my Midwestern upbringing with only occasional rolling hills and big lakes to worry about.
Once I got into Park City, though, it took me longer than expected to find parking and ride the (free!) bus to Main Street, where I had to walk uphill a ways to find the Egyptian Theatre. The bus stopped for a couple minutes because a tow truck was blocking the road… parking without permission is a serious offense at the festival. Sundance encourages environmental friendliness at their festival, which ranges from riding free buses (that run in addition to the regular free buses in Park City, paid for by tourism taxes) to recycling stations set up all over the place. A far cry from what I’ve seen around Utah otherwise, namely that people drive a half block to go to church. Yes, there are Mormon churches within a stone’s throw from each other all over the place, and somehow people still drive their SUVs a block or two, even a half block, every Sunday. What’s the point?
Anyway, back to SFF. I made it to the Egyptian about ten minutes after my scheduled 2:00 shift start, but it wasn’t a big deal. It was cool to walk past the line of people standing outside and show my shiny new volunteer badge at the door to be let in. I was directed to the volunteer supervisor (Shannon) and given the job of "Slasher" for the 3:00 movie. This entailed the easy task of holding a clipboard and making hash marks to count the number of people entering the theater with passes instead of hard tickets. It was a little more challenging than I thought because of the pace that people were streaming into the theater and my lack of understanding the difference between the passes. I finally figured it out.
I still didn’t really know anyone, but was consumed with taking it all in. I had spent way too much time the day before playing Super Mario Galaxy because I was so excited about the festival… how geeky and fangirlish, I know.
There’s more to come, but I think I have to split it into another blog entry.
