This Side of the Pond

Let me tell you about the time I nearly went to the Sundance festival.

No, not the winter one that’s coming up in a few weeks. I’m talking about the star-studded movie extravaganza that stole our name.

For a little while there, I was on the master guest list alongside some of Hollywood’s finest superstars.

You’re probably wondering how that could possibly have happened, so let me assure you that I am still asking myself the same.

The insanity began a week ago when a message turned up in my inbox from a PR firm, inviting me to be a VIP guest to one of the festival’s exclusive lounges.

Obviously, my first reaction was bafflement.

I’d never been called a valued member of the Sundance press and media before, though, so that part cheered me up.

We eventually surmised that this California-based firm was another casualty of Robert Redford’s naming choices and had no idea there are two Sundances (and that only one of them is the real one).

To the best of my knowledge, Fake Sundance isn’t actually a town, so it doesn’t have a newspaper. My new friend clearly wanted to reach out to the local press and her search engine directed to us, and she wouldn’t have had any way to tell the difference.

That epiphany came later. As I stared at the email, I was mostly wondering whether or not I should dig out a pair of heels and head for Utah.

I wouldn’t even have considered it had I not mentioned it to a friend, who promptly researched driving costs and hotel rooms and had a plan developed within 30 seconds. This is one of those opportunities that only comes along once, she said, so we couldn’t possibly turn it down.

To my surprise, I now had a driver arranged and accommodations sorted, but the biggest shock was how much everyone around us encouraged us to go. Not a single person thought it was a bad idea (except our editor, but that’s because he thought it was on a weekday and he’d have to proof the newspaper all by himself).

Even my mother was behind the plan. She said I drove further just to eat at Cracker Barrel in Billings, which did cast doubt on her grasp of distances, but was still a relevant point.

Perusing the invitation, I was getting more interested by the moment. The guest list included Steven Soderbergh, Alicia Silverstone, Laura Linney, Jennifer Grey (unlikely to be in the corner) and more.

Plus, as an invite-only guest, I would get to enjoy a “curated selection of libations”, a celebrity portrait studio, gourmet desserts and something called “light gifting”.

I don’t know what that is, but I was prepared to be enlightened.

We even had the brilliant idea to get hold of a t-shirt with the slogan they thought about using for the city a while back: “Sundance: where the festival isn’t”. My plan was to hand it to the first celebrity I ran across and then hope they were snapped wearing it in People magazine.

I also argued to myself that it’s part of my job to represent this community – at meetings, events and so on. I go so that you don’t have to.

Well, with the possibility of some light gifting and a brief chat with Jason Momoa, this might not have been one of the times you needed my help, but one must take the good with the bad.

We hit a snag when I realized that members of the festival media are credentialed ahead of time and given a press badge to prove their identity. I, obviously, did not have one of these golden tickets.

We overcame said snag when I asked the PR lady whether I would need one, and was told she would be happy to credential me and was adding me to the aforementioned master guest list.

She then mentioned that was also getting me hooked up with the rest of the PR team to set up my interviews with the sponsors.

This was the second snag. I really didn’t want to do any interviews – and not just because I wanted as much time as possible with the gourmet desserts. I didn’t feel comfortable wasting these people’s time.

At this point, I wasn’t sure what to do, and I didn’t want to get these nice ladies in trouble, so I decided that my only option was to come clean. I replied to the whole PR team thanking them for thinking of us over in the original Sundance, where both the Kid and Mr. Redford got the name.

I said we would be excited to represent the wild west and were making arrangements to be there. I figured that one of two things would happen: either they’d finally figure out who I am and tell me to eat dirt, or they’d be tickled at the idea of hosting folks from the real Sundance and let me come along anyway for the novelty value.

If it was the latter, the accent was going to be a problem, but I’d cross that bridge when I came to it. I hit send and crossed my fingers.

I can only imagine the panic at the other end of the connection as those poor girls realized their mistake. A long time passed as I stared at my inbox with only a tumbleweed for company.

That evening, though, I heard from one of the PR team. Not only had they not decided I should stay home, they had now been kind enough to offer me a plus one so I could bring my travel planning assistant.

The email wasn’t from the person who invited me in the first place, though, and I felt she probably had the final say on both whether I was really invited and whether I’d have to conduct a series of pointless interviews. And so, I waited.

As I write this, I still haven’t heard back from her and I’m not sure I ever will. The festival is coming up this weekend, so we’re running out of time to book our hotel.

I guess I’ll just have to stay here in the real Sundance, even though it’s the one where the festival isn’t. I know Pedro Pascal will be terribly disappointed he didn’t get to meet me, and I’ll never know what it’s like to get a facial from the Beverly Hills Rejuvenation Center.

Worst of all – and I can only apologize for letting you down here as your designated representative, but please believe me when I say I tried – is that we will now all have to go the rest of our lives without ever knowing what it’s like to be lightly gifted.