I started my evening with police Capt. Phil Kirk and saw a little mayhem prevention in action. About 7:30 p.m., Kirk was outside Harry O’s Nightclub when he ran into an old friend working security for the club. The friend invited Kirk — and thus me — inside. When Kirk saw the management, he began asking what acts were playing during the festival.  

“We want to know that so we can plan,” Kirk said.

The management said they did not expect problems when Maroon 5 played later that night, 50 Cent kicked in tonight or when P. Diddy, possibly, plays there Wednesday.
So Park City police got a heads up on when people might try to barge into the club — or what rock stars to check for outstanding warrants. But nobody warned them about burglary suspects falling from rooftops.

About 30 minutes after the Harry O’s visit, the police scanner crackled with reports that someone had fallen from the deck at the Side Car bar in the Main Street Mall. Kirk and I arrived and, yep, someone was on the sidewalk with ambulance personnel and police officers around him. Blood was in the snow.

Officer Jim Foust said it appeared the man did not fall from the balcony, but rather from the mall’s roof, slightly to the north of the balcony. He hit the skylight above the mall’s entrance then ricocheted onto the sidewalk — about 40 feet of free fall. The man survived but was bleeding from the head. He left the festival in the back of an ambulance.

So what was the guy doing on the roof? Another man at the scene accused the fall victim of trying to steal his television. Whether that’s true remains to be determined. (Police were having a difficult time interviewing the man who fell 40 feet.) In any event, just remember: You can get lots of swag for free at Sundance. You don’t need to steal anything!

Since this Foust guy seemed to have a knack for being in the action, I stuck with him for the remainder of the evening. Boy, was that a good decision. A little while later, a Harry O’s bouncer grabbed Foust and asked him to help escort some people. Foust ran onto the curb in front of the club and out of a van came Maroon 5. (By the way, ever wonder what the downtown Salt Lake City coffee shop crowd would look like if they formed a pop band? Meet Maroon 5.)
Bouncers, Foust and I (actually, I just trailed behind everything to stay out of the way), made sure no moviegoers groped the band on its way into Harry O’s. Once inside the club, Foust and I decided to look around, since getting into any Park City club during Sundance requires something between a temple recommend and your own production company.

We had just elbowed and gouged our way past the first few revelers when, at 10:26 p.m., the lights went out. They went out on most of Main Street, too. Hello, new favorite memory of the Sundance Film Festival!

It took about three minutes of having only floodlight illumination in the club for everyone to realize this was more than someone tripping over the lamp cord. Foust drew his flashlight and moved to Main Street.  

“Well, this is interesting,” I heard him say.

Foust and a few other officers went to a big breaker box on Main Street and looked inside. Hey, it’s a full-service police department in Park City. And it turns out the town’s electrical system is really secure, what with a big silver breaker box located in the middle of a film festival accessible by unscrewing the latches with your fingers.

But the problem was not in the breaker box and so the police returned to keeping an eye on festival patrons while utility crews sought the problem. At 10:48, the lights came on. There was a brownout about five minutes later, but then the juice flowed for good.

By comparison, the remainder of my night was uneventful. There were two arrests. Once, police said, was a guy who threw a trash can at a passing police car. The other came after someone punched a bouncer.

“Saturday is going to be our big night,” Foust said. That’s when U2 will be in town, 50 Cent will perform and Sundance attendance will soar.