The 2013 Penn State Movin’ On spring music festival collected about 1,000 student responses from its first open-ended online survey and constructed a list of 20 musicians that students would like to see — all of which will be listed on the second student survey.
Karisa Maxwell, Movin’ On director of marketing , said the group received 4,000 initial student responses last year. She said the decrease in responses may have been because band choices were listed out on last year’s survey.
“The survey was open-ended this year so there was nothing to get excited about,” Maxwell (senior-broadcast journalism and political science) said. “But we wanted to push transparency, we wanted to be vague first and very specific second.”
Dan Kramer, Movin’ On director of events, said the group also didn’t want to include names on the first survey because the budget was not set yet.
Every year, acts like Dave Mathews Band and Mumford and Sons are requested, but the budget that comes from the student activities fee is not large enough, Maxwell said.
“One major thing students don’t understand every year is that there are so many factors out of our control, like some bands don’t want to perform at a college event or they are too expensive for our $400,000 show,” Maxwell said.
Kramer (junior-materials engineering) said responses garnered from the first survey, the budget and the availability of artists on the date of the festival, April 26, came into play when making the list of musicians for the second survey.
Kramer said even if big names can’t be booked, the Movin’ On executive committee tries to find artists who are similar in style to cater to the students.
The second survey will have an online option as well but Maxwell said the group wants to try a more grassroots approach to getting student responses this year by having the marketing committee go downtown and grab a random sample.
Students will be asked to pick one band of their choice from the list and answer questions about Movin’ On in general.
Among the list of names to pick from are easily recognizable musicians, like Frank Ocean or Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, as well as less known musicians, like Trampled by Turtles and Imagine Dragons.
Kramer said the committee wanted to include lesser known bands on the list because of Young the Giant’s success at last year’s Movin’ On.
“Young the Giant was less well known when they were on the survey but throughout the year their album got popular and by the time they came to Penn State they had a good following,” Kramer said. “We are looking for bands like them, who will become popular by spring. We don’t just want huge artists that everyone knows.”
Tim Gould,Movin’ On overall director, said a standout among the list has been Imagine Dragons, an indie-rock band from Las Vegas that has been nominated for best rock music video at this year’s MTV Video Music Awards.
“I’ve heard the name thrown around a lot in conversations and on music sites, Gould (senior-geobiology) said.
To email reporter: kfg5033@psu.edu
