The Movin’ On committee announced psychedelic rock band MGMT as the headliner for the Penn State 2013 Movin’ On spring music festival Wednesday afternoon in the HUB-Robeson Center.
Karisa Maxwell, Movin’ On director of marketing, made the announcement for the April 26 music festival to a crowd of students enjoying their lunch.
MGMT’s “Time to Pretend” is the band’s most recognizable track from 2008. The band has been on the Movin’ On survey as the possible headliner choice for the past few years and has been a popular choice among the student body.
Local rapper, Mike “Wallz” Wallace was with the committee at the time of the announcement with “Off the Wallz” radio, pumping up the crowd before the headliner was announced at 12:30 p.m.
“I’m really excited about MGMT and everyone’s going to have a great time as usual for free,” Wallz (senior-telecommunications) said.
Students like Tim Rinehart, who was sitting at a table nearby, said that he guesses MGMT is a good headliner choice.
“I mean MGMT was middle school for me though,” Rinehardt (sophomore-biology) said.
With Movin’ On’s collaborator, Student Programming Association bringing in more up-and-coming artists to campus like Imagine Dragons and Karmin, it seems the music festival is taking a different approach in choosing an older band.
Though MGMT’s “Electric Feel” remixed by French electronic music duo, Justice, won a Grammy Award in 2009 and “Kids” was another well received track, the band hasn’t released any new material in a while.
Maxwell said in previous years, MGMT was unavailable and not within the budget. MGMT was available this year and within their allocated price range which is about $400,000. That range does not include the sponsorships Movin’ On also receives throughout the year.
“MGMT will be the highest paid act and will take up about the quarter of the allocation for Movin’ On,” Maxwell (senior-broadcast journalism and political science) said.
Maxwell said the committee is in the process of finalizing contracts for the other two acts and is hoping to announce them within the first few weeks of the spring semester.
Allen Sheffield, public relations chair for Movin’ On, said MGMT should be an exciting live act and the committee is making sure to target other genres like hip-hop that hasn’t been hit yet.
“We wouldn’t spend all our money on one band,” Sheffield (junior-public relations) said.
