The first onslaught of individual-ticket buyers for the 2009 Sundance Film Festival hit this weekend at Salt Lake City's Trolley Square - as well as the box offices at Park City and Ogden.

The nifty part is that these ticket buyers are Utah residents, not industry regulars or Hollywood hangers-on. According to Sundance's estimates, 43 percent of the festival's total audience are Utahns.

"It's the greatest cultural thing Utah has to offer," Shannon Mussett, a philosophy professor at Utah Valley University, told the Tribune's Lisa Schencker. "It's one of these moments where you feel Utah is the best state."

(Photo: Leah Hogsten/The Salt Lake Tribune)