The. End.

Tonight is the last night of the Sundance Film Festival, but really it ended Saturday night. That was when the films in competition were awarded their prizes, and the finalists went home on the red eye Sunday morning.

This years fest was fraught with glitches, snafus and bugaboos. It started with small stuff, like not having the coats available to distribute at Check-In (We were advised, "The Men's jackets are here, the Women's are stuck in customs…") to 50% of our volunteers getting the incorrect size ("I ordered an XXL and they gave me a Medium, what should I do?") There was a misprint in the Film Guide (traditionally The Rose Wagner is the only Salt Lake theater showing films on the last Sunday, but the schedule had them at The Tower theater, which is 17 blocks away…) and the list goes on…

The patrons seemed especially aggressive this year. I cannot tell you the number of times I had to explain "The Wait-List Paradox" (If you save a seat for someone in the Wait List line, and tell me the seat next to you is unavailable, then we cannot sell a wait list ticket to your friend in the line that you are holding the seat for because you've told me that seat is already occupied… Get It?") One guy even shoved Charlie around because there were no more seats available, he showed up late, and demanded to be allowed in.

Dude. Seriously. Have you ever heard the phrase "Ten pounds of shit in a five pound bag"? For a show yesterday we were told that two people were sharing a chair in one of the balcony boxes. Sorry, but I cannot fathom wanting to sit on one butt cheek for 90 minutes. I don't care what movie it is, my ass deserves better treatment than that.

We spaced ballots for one of the films in competition, and neglected to hand them out before the movie started. Catching our error, we handed them out as soon as the film ended and had a better rate of return on the ballots then we usually get (a lot of people lose them, put them in their pockets or bags, and neglect to turn them into us after them film.) I actually had a woman infer that we did it on purpose because of the subject matter of the film. I was speechless…almost. I advised her that it was a grievous error, for which we made sure to make right for the film maker, and there was no "conspiracy." Then she made a comment about "You Salt Lake People", like we're all Right Wing Conservative Republican Mormon members of The Eagle Forum, which, as anyone who know me (and the people I volunteer with) can tell you is so far off the mark it's laughable. We had already advised the film's director, but she made sure to run over and tell them, just in case. Like we were hiding something. Which we weren’t.

Deep inhale… hold it… hold it... long exhale.

Tonight is Best of Fest; we have three movies scheduled to show today, and then it's over. The managers from the Rose Wagner Team are also hosting our second annual "Sundae Monday" where we bring in ice cream and all the accoutrements for Sundaes to our volunteers to thank them for digging in and returning to our venue and doing the fabulous job that they do.

Even if their coat doesn't fit.