Every year Movin' On comes, and every year it's a little different.

Early in the 1970s, it was held behind East Halls, and in 2006 it was the same weekend as the Blue-White game. What remains consistent, however, is its existence as a capstone to the year for the Penn State populace.

"Students seem to look forward to it every year," said Eddie Fugelsang (senior-information services and technology), this year's Movin' On director.

Although the event may be only a free spring concert to the student body at large, it's more than just 12 hours of music for the more than two dozen students who help put the event together.

"A lot of people don't understand how much work goes into it," said Fugelsang, who has been a part of the Movin' On committee since his sophomore year.

The biggest obstacle for booking the show, Fugelsang said, comes when negotiating a contract with the headlining band -- this year, Say Anything -- which includes agreeing on a price the committee can afford and settling riders, such as providing food, equipment and hotel lodging for the band.

Jameela Truman, Class of 2007, was last year's Movin' On director. She said last year's budget for the entire event was about $96,000, roughly $25,000 to $30,000 of which went to the bands. UPAC contributed $66,000, and the rest was from advertisers, she said.

Truman said it was her idea to move the event from Blue-White weekend, so Movin' On could be its own entity. Still, the festival ended up falling on the same weekend -- as it will this year -- as the Give It A Name and Coachella music festivals, both of which draw dozens of bands that would otherwise be of interest to the Movin' On committee.

That said, Truman was happy with the way the Phantom Planet-headlined event turned out.

"I was pretty content with who we got," she said. "You want to keep it diverse. Students don't get too many opportunities to see that type of thing."

Truman said she is dissatisfied, however, with the way some students criticize the event. Often when Movin' On comes around, The Daily Collegian prints letters to the editor complaining about the lineup, and some posts on the wall of the Facebook.com event created for this year's festival offered criticism.

"People should appreciate it," she said. "It takes pretty much an entire year to put it together."

Greg Gabbard, owner of City Lights Records, 316 E. College Ave., has been in State College for more than two decades now, and has been to Movin' On several times. He has not been to the event, however, since 2003, when it was headlined by renowned alt-country band Wilco.

"The past few years, I haven't really been attracted," Gabbard said. "And I like all different kinds of music."

The main reason Gabbard has stayed away in past years, he said, is simply because of the lineup.

"They used to have acts like Sonic Youth, Guided By Voices, Marc Ribot," he said. "What's changed?"

Gabbard said he recommended the committee spread the money more evenly across the show as opposed to using such a large portion of its budget on the headliner.

"I would get really, really good inexpensive bands," he said. "If that means making the headliner a little smaller, I'd do it."

One local concert promoter, though, said he's fine with the current situation with Movin' On.

"It's always been run by kids, for kids," said Ted Swanson, a local concert promoter that has helped with Movin' On in the past. "That's why it's the coolest thing."

Swanson said students request to see Say Anything as often as they do any other band, and this year's committee didn't necessarily need any outside muscle.

Swanson, however, hasn't been involved with the event since the Wilco-headlined event five years ago, he said, which he attributed to an ever-rotating crew of students on the committee.

After Swanson built a reputation booking shows for the now-defunct Crowbar and at other festivals, earlier committees asked Swanson for some assistance.

"The kids always pick good bands," he said. "But sometimes the business end needs to be worked out."

Fugelsang said he tried to pick a diverse group of bands that would appeal to a broad group of students, selecting bands he thought would have the biggest draw out of those that were available and within budget.

He said, however, he understood he couldn't please everyone.

"You can't appeal to everyone's musical tastes," he said. "I'm not forcing anyone to go to a free show, and I'm not sorry if people don't like it, but that's the way it is. I do my best."

Truman shared the same sentiment.

"Lots of people complain, but it's more room for the people who appreciate it," she said.