COVID-19 Surge Forces Sundance to Cancel California Drive-In

The Grammy’s are not the only industry event that has been altered by the COVID-19 padnemic in 2021. Sundance film Festival has canceled drivein movie screenings in Southern California, Variety reports.

The events were set to be held in both the Rose Bowl Stadium and Mission Tiki Drive-in for those who were not able to make it to Park City, Utah. Unfortunately, the alarming rates of death and infections due to the pandemic have canceled those events.

“The safety and well-being of our audiences, community and staff is the most important thing to Sundance Institute and Sundance Film Festival. In consideration of the overall public health situation in the Los Angeles area and the trajectory of the spread of the virus there, the health guidelines, and crisis the hospital systems are facing we will be pivoting our planned drive-in screenings to our online platform,” a festival spokesperson said.

“When we designed the expression of the 2021 Festival it was with the online platform at the core. We wanted to gather in person where possible and planned to dial elements up and down based on the health situation in our locations at the time of the event. We have built the digital platform so that festivalgoers online can screen work across the entire program and take part in premiere screenings followed by a live online Q&A with the artists and filmmakers,” they added.

Just this past Monday, California registered 39,194 new cases.