Hundreds Rally in Park City as "No Kings" Protests Sweep Utah

Susan Odell had a simple answer for the sea of purple that flooded the PEAK Center parking lot in Kimball Junction on Saturday afternoon. "Why purple?" the Pro-Active Alliance leader asked from the stage. "We want to add a little blue to this red state."

More than 1,200 people gathered at 6301 N. Landmark Drive for Park City's third "No Kings" rally, the largest local turnout since the demonstration series launched last summer and part of a statewide mobilization that brought 18 simultaneous protests across Utah on March 28. Nationwide, organizers counted more than 3,300 coordinated events.

Purple was everywhere: dog leashes, sun shirts, flags, and hand-lettered posters in the signature hue that the Pro-Active Alliance, a grassroots civic engagement group in the Wasatch Back, reinforced by distributing purple bandanas and pins. The color was intentional, symbolizing the blend of Republican red and Democratic blue that organizers said reflected their coalition.

Unlike the two prior local rallies, Saturday's event featured a structured 30-minute program. The crowd opened with "We Are Many," its chorus echoing off the face of the PEAK building before speakers addressed immigration enforcement, the recently launched war in Iran, and democratic norms. Afterward, demonstrators marched from the lot to the Millennium Trail and toward SR-224.

Odell helped organize the June 2025 rally at the Kimball Junction I-80 pedestrian overpass, where estimates ranged from 500 to 1,000 participants. She said the urgency had only grown. "I think the situation is more dire than it was last June," she said.

Not everyone in the crowd was a Summit County regular. Kelly Ryan, visiting from Louisville, Kentucky, sought out the Park City rally while on vacation. "I'm tired of the Trump regime," Ryan said. "I want to restore democracy in my country. It actually brings me to tears, this isn't the country I grew up in."

The "No Kings" movement gained fresh momentum in January 2026, when the killings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti drew national attention, then intensified further after the United States launched military operations in Iran, giving protesters a new grievance to carry into the third national day of action.

For the Pro-Active Alliance, Saturday's crowd was the largest the Wasatch Back movement has produced on its own soil, more than double what law enforcement counted at the June 2025 overpass rally. The organization tabled alongside other local groups during the program, a sign that what began as a gathering on a highway bridge has grown into a structured civic event with a march route, a set list, and a few hundred more participants each time out.