{"id":887,"date":"2014-09-16T11:00:52","date_gmt":"2014-09-16T17:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.parkrag.com\/?p=887"},"modified":"2014-09-16T11:00:52","modified_gmt":"2014-09-16T17:00:52","slug":"park-city-was-already-vail-it-just-didnt-have-the-name","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/v2.parkrag.com\/index.php\/2014\/09\/16\/park-city-was-already-vail-it-just-didnt-have-the-name\/","title":{"rendered":"Park City Was Already Vail — It Just Didn’t Have the Name"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the wake of Vail\u2019s takeover of PCMR, there was a common reaction, \u201cthis isn\u2019t going to be the Park City we used to know anymore.\u201d \u00a0It was lamented that\u00a0Big Corporate Vail<\/strong> was going to strip the essence of the Park City and replace it with resorts for the rich, expensive homes, celebrity-only events, and lots of outsiders. \u00a0Ummm\u2026<\/p>\n

The truth is that this already isn\u2019t the Park City that mine workers remember from the 1960\u2019s, or the Main Street from the 1980\u2019s, or the run up to the Olympics of the early 2000\u2019s. \u00a0 Park City\u00a0was already Vail, it just didn\u2019t have the name. \u00a0It\u2019s funny, if\u00a0we would have paid attention to what has been going on around us for years, we would already know that. \u00a0There is no better way to illustrate that than with the Sundance Film Festival.<\/p>\n

Sundance, or as it was called at the time, The Utah\/US Film festival, began in 1978 in Salt Lake with the Robert Redford and the Utah Film Commission behind it. \u00a0\u201cThe goal of the festival was to showcase strictly American-made films, highlight the potential of independent film, and to increase visibility for filmmaking in Utah.<\/a>\u201d \u00a0Films like Deliverance, A Streetcar Named Desire, and Midnight Cowboy were\u00a0inaugural films in the festival. In 1981 it moved to Park City and officially became Sundance in 1984. \u00a0By 2010 critics were charging that the festival was no longer about small-budget, independent creations\u00a0from outside the Hollywood system but instead was\u00a0a media extravaganza for Hollywood celebrity actors, paparazzi, and luxury lounges set up by companies not affiliated with Sundance.<\/p>\n

Much like Sundance, Park City\u00a0had become unweidly. \u00a0No longer was it about the Utah Film Festival or about\u00a0promiting Utah films, it was about seeing Van Wilder<\/span>\u00a0Ryan Reynolds\u00a0ride his scooter to Silver. \u00a0It was about which celebrity did you see. \u00a0It was about parties you could never get into. \u00a0It was a place for the rich and famous from LA to vacation for a couple of days with their cohorts. \u00a0That\u2019s all fine, but it is not the Park City that people remember.<\/p>\n

Then in 2010 Banksy, \u00a0a renowned graffiti artist, came to town. \u00a0He had a film called Exit Through the Gift Shop playing Sundance. \u00a0Banksy has a\u00a0way of telling it like it is. \u00a0He is famous for quotes like \u201cWe can\u2019t do anything to change the world until capitalism crumbles. In the meantime we should all go shopping to console ourselves.\u201d \u00a0When his film was\u00a0nominated for an Oscar he noted, \u201cThis is a big surprise\u2026 I don\u2019t agree with the concept of award ceremonies, but I\u2019m prepared to make an exception for the ones I\u2019m nominated for. The last time there was a naked man covered in gold paint in my house, it was me.\u201d \u00a0It\u2019s all tongue and cheek but yet telling.<\/em><\/p>\n

During Sundance 2010\u00a0Banksy spent his time tagging 10 sites in Park City and SLC\u00a0with graffiti. \u00a0That is what he does. \u00a0Park City was doing what it does and was on its way to becoming Little-Vail. \u00a0By then Sundance was bringining in $65 \u00a0million per year into local economies. \u00a0Within days of the graffiti, two things happened. \u00a0The Park City you used\u00a0to know and love did what you would imagine it would do, and cleaned and painted over the graffiti found on some of its walls. \u00a0The new Park City was ready to exploit the opportunity. \u00a0 One of the Egytian Theater\u2019s doors was tagged with an image of a rat. \u00a0They took the door down and put it in storage.<\/p>\n

\"banksy_pc\"<\/a>
\nThree\u00a0years later, they lauched a Save Our Banksy intiative where they want $3 million from Park City locals and Banksy Lovers so they don\u2019t have to auction the art off to a wealthy art collector. \u00a0What would Banksy probably have preferred? \u00a0Just leave the door on the wall and\u00a0let people enjoy\u00a0it as long as it lasts.<\/p>\n

Others would say, \u201cBut what if it gets vandalized? \u00a0What if someone spray paints it?\u201d That\u2019s just what\u00a0happened to a couple of pieces that had graffiti put on top of Banksy\u2019s graffiti<\/span> art. \u00a0Summit County then spent months tracking\u00a0the man down and has ultimately had a judge rule that the vandal must pay $13,000 in restitution. \u00a0I can only image Banksy saying \u201cHow is my graffiti right but his is wrong\u2026 except that his lacks complete talent.\u201d The time and effort spent on finding the man and trying him could have been used in so many other ways. \u00a0Yet, since\u00a0Park City is what it is now, there was little choice.<\/p>\n

As we look back on what Park city has become, it is no longer what may people remember. Robert Redford agrees. This no longer is the little film festival Robert Redford dreamed of. This year Redford said, \u201cHow can I not be satisfied about a success? But those earlier years felt best. They\u2019re taking away some of the textures and qualities that were here that gave it a kind of intimacy. It\u2019s no longer the place it was. I don\u2019t like what\u2019s happened<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

He summed up Park City perfectly. \u00a0Park City hasn\u2019t been what it once was for a long time. It\u2019s now a town with a $125 million\u00a0movie studio, $2600\u00a0per night\u00a0hotel rooms, and California-style traffic. \u00a0Vail didn\u2019t bring this on us, it has been headed our direction like a freight train from Coalville. \u00a0If we would have paid a little more attention\u00a0maybe we could have decided to take\u00a0a different path. At this point, maybe we should just try to be the best Little-Vail we can be.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the wake of Vail\u2019s takeover of PCMR, there was a common reaction, \u201cthis isn\u2019t going to be the Park City we used to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/v2.parkrag.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/887"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/v2.parkrag.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/v2.parkrag.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/v2.parkrag.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/v2.parkrag.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/v2.parkrag.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/887\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/v2.parkrag.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/v2.parkrag.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/v2.parkrag.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}