Sundance's VIP Party Gatekeeper Can Get You on the List

It’s easy to miss Christopher Ryan among the glamorous hordes at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, which runs through Jan. 26. A stout man with thick eyebrows and a puffy black parka, Ryan spends his days roaming the ski town’s Main Street, clutching papers and a smartphone filled with the cell numbers of the most important producers, agents, managers, publicists, and journalists there. “At least once during Sundance, I’ll get a call from a celebrity who says, ‘My publicist said you’ll tell me where to go tonight,’” he says with a hint of faux annoyance.

Ryan is the unofficial ringleader of the Sundance party-circuit circus. His domain is the calendar of 400 or so invite-only parties that pack the festival schedule and vie for powerful people’s RSVPs. These include film premières (brought to you by Grey Goose) and snowboarding lessons (sponsored by Oakley). Then there are the “gifting suites” (presented by brands such as Hewlett-Packard, Eddie Bauer, and Nintendo), where swag is given away in hopes someone will see Paul Rudd skiing through Deer Valley with that new hat or Sofia Coppola pulling that cool camera out of her handbag at the Riverhorse on Main.