{"id":105800,"date":"2026-09-14T04:52:50","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T11:52:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=105800"},"modified":"2026-09-15T05:01:45","modified_gmt":"2026-09-15T12:01:45","slug":"spy-hop-takes-the-field-at-smiths-ballpark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/spy-hop-takes-the-field-at-smiths-ballpark\/","title":{"rendered":"Spy Hop Takes the Field at Smith\u2019s Ballpark"},"content":{"rendered":"

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When the Salt Lake Bees pulled up stakes and left for Daybreak after the 2024 season, they ended roughly a century of professional baseball around the corner of 1300 South and West Temple. The team\u2019s owners found what they were looking for farther south\u2014room for a new stadium anchoring their growing Downtown Daybreak development\u2014while Salt Lake City was left with something considerably harder to move: a 14,000-seat ballpark in the middle of a neighborhood.<\/p>\n

Losing an anchor like that can leave a gaping hole in a neighborhood, not to mention a lot of expensive infrastructure sitting idle. But while Salt Lake City works through long-term plans for the 13.5-acre site, it has begun putting the old ballpark to some imaginative new uses. Last month the Utah Arts Alliance brought its Urban Arts Festival to the stadium. Now Spy Hop is stepping up to the plate with an event of its own.<\/p>\n

Smith’s Ballpark was thirty years old, but the departure wasn\u2019t onl a matter of needing a new ballpark. The Larry H. Miller Company, which owns the Bees, had been weighing a move for years, citing concerns about crime, safety and parking around Smith\u2019s Ballpark. More importantly, perhaps, the company had an opportunity farther south to put the team at the center of a development of its own. The new privately funded ballpark became an anchor for Downtown Daybreak, the Miller Company\u2019s nearly 200-acre mixed-use development of housing, restaurants, shops and entertainment in South Jordan.<\/p>\n

Salt Lake City tried to keep the team. Mayor Erin Mendenhall said her administration spent 20 months working to persuade the Miller Company to remain, but acknowledged when the move was announced that having the Bees anchor the long-planned Daybreak development had become the likeliest outcome.<\/p>\n

Over the summer of 2025, the city\u2019s Community Reinvestment Agency and Salt Lake City Arts Council commissioned ten new murals throughout the Ballpark neighborhood<\/a>, pairing local artists with businesses willing to turn their walls into canvases. The resulting open-air collection includes work by Trent Call, Paul Heath, Traci O\u2019Very Covey, Isaac Hastings, Joseph Toney and others, with several of the works drawing directly on the neighborhood\u2019s baseball identity. The program was conceived as a way to strengthen the neighborhood\u2019s identity, support its businesses and bring some additional life to its streets.<\/p>\n

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Meanwhile, the stadium itself has begun serving as an enormous experimental arts venue. Last month, the Utah Arts Alliance moved its Urban Arts Festival into Smith\u2019s Ballpark, filling the former home of the Bees with visual art, music and performances. Now Spy Hop is stepping up to the plate with an event of its own.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, Sept. 19, the Salt Lake City youth media arts nonprofit will transform Smith\u2019s Ballpark into what it bills as a giant backyard movie night. The inaugural Backyard Film Bash combines a national short-film competition with live music, food, interactive activities and performances by Spy Hop alumni, culminating in screenings and an awards ceremony under the stadium lights.<\/p>\n

At the center of the event are 12 short films selected from a competition that challenged filmmakers to create an original work of no more than seven minutes and somehow incorporate one required ingredient: salt.<\/p>\n

The results range widely. There\u2019s Brinefest<\/em>, Andy Whipple\u2019s take on a Great Salt Lake pickling competition; KI: Potassium Iodide<\/em>, Zealand Thomas Despain\u2019s story of a man deciding whether surviving the apocalypse is worth the trouble; and Morty Goes Camping<\/em>, by Lennox and Townes Fetzer, whose protagonist is an ordinary can of salt embarking on an outdoor adventure. Other finalists tackle horror, science fiction, friendship, family and the perils of taking the phrase \u201csalt of the earth\u201d too literally.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s more than bragging rights at stake. The winning filmmaker receives $10,000, two films will receive Special Jury prizes, and attendees will choose an Audience Award winner through live voting.<\/p>\n

Judging the films live will be a Utah-centered panel: filmmaker and Napoleon Dynamite and Austenland writer Jerusha Hess; University of Utah Film & Media Arts chair Tim Palmer; Neon Trees frontman Tyler Glenn; and Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Jenny Mackenzie. The four will watch the finalists with the audience, deliberate and select the Best Film and two Special Jury Prize winners.<\/p>\n

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SpyHop alumni Tinted Noise, at the Utah Arts Festival<\/p><\/div>\n

The Bash is intended to be more backyard party than traditional film festival. Gates open at 3 p.m., with DJs and live performances by Spy Hop alumni throughout the afternoon, along with food vendors and family activities before the film screenings and awards later in the evening.<\/p>\n

For Spy Hop, the event also puts some of its own creative community on a much larger stage. For more than 27 years, the Salt Lake City nonprofit has worked with young people ages 8\u201325, providing hands-on experience in film, music, audio and design. Alumni artists will perform on the ballpark\u2019s main stage throughout the afternoon.<\/p>\n

\u201cBackyard Film Bash is Spy Hop\u2019s way of creating a fun, new community gathering that celebrates media arts and the artists who use them to tell stories, spark ideas and connect people,\u201d Executive Director Larissa Trout says. \u201cWe hope it becomes an annual celebration bringing together the community to discover great work, uplift artists and simply have fun together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spy Hop\u2019s Backyard Film Bash
\nSaturday, Sept. 19, 2026
\nSmith\u2019s Ballpark, Salt Lake City
\nGates open at 3 p.m.
\nFree tickets and event information: spyhop.org\/events\/backyard-film-bash<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When the Salt Lake Bees pulled up stakes and left for Daybreak after the 2024 season, they ended roughly a century of professional baseball around the corner of 1300 South and West Temple. The team\u2019s owners found what they were looking for farther south\u2014room for a new stadium […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":105838,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[12,34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-105800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-film","category-performing-arts"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-10-17 20:03:34","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/IMG_9553-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105800"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105800\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":105840,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105800\/revisions\/105840"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}