100 years of film celebrated at Utah Tourism's Matinee & Mingle events

The Utah Office of Tourism (UOT) and its partners held movie-themed Matinee and Mingle events in Vancouver (May 29), Calgary (May 30) and Toronto (May 31) to promote the U.S. state to Canadian travel media across the country and celebrate 100 Years of Film in Utah in 2024.

As the trend of set-jetting — where travellers visit destinations featured in movies and TV shows — continues to influence the travel industry, special guest speaker Virginia Pearce, executive director of the Utah Film Commission, shared the history of Utah. America’s Film Set® and the film tourism experiences available to visitors.

The UOT was also joined by representatives from Visit Salt Lake, The Heber Valley, Visit Cedar City and Rocky Mountaineer, whose Rockies to the Red Rocks rail journey travels between Moab, UT, and Denver, CO.

Robert Redford may be widely known for developing Utah’s Sundance Mountain Resort and Sundance Film Festival, held annually in January in Park City, but it was Utah’s Parry Brothers who shot the first film in Cedar City in 1924, The Covered Wagon.

Utah is marking the anniversary with a year-long exhibition at the State Capitol in Salt Lake City, monthly special events ranging from the annual Thelma & Louise marathon in Moab, to Kevin Bacon returning to Payson, UT, for the 40^th anniversary of Footloose, and the introduction of a Utah Film Trail, with inaugural historical markers placed across the state for visitors to follow coming summer 2024.

In Toronto, Air Canada was in attendance to announce its seasonal service to Salt Lake City will restart this summer. 

Beginning June 2, Air Canada resumed its non-stop service from Toronto (YYZ) to Salt Lake City (SLC) until October 25, 2024.

Flights will operate four times weekly, departing from YYZ at 6:20pm and arriving in SLC at 8:50pm on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday.

The return flight departs SLC at 9:25am and arrives YYZ at 3:10pm on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

The SLC International Airport is currently building the first new U.S. hub airport in the 21^st  century.

The $5.1 billion USD redevelopment program includes four phases, with the first opened in September 2020 and the final phase scheduled to be complete by late 2024.

As has become practice by the UOT since the pandemic, they once again made a charitable donation aligned with the Canadian events.

Utah is working to keep its state Forever Mighty — their ethos for responsible travel and stewardship — and has made donations in the past to organizations such as Colour The Trails and the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada.

In keeping with this year’s film theme, the UOT donated to Kevin Bacon’s SixDegrees.Org, which has set a goal to deliver 40,000 essential resource kits to those in need, in honour of the 40^th anniversary of Footloose.

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