From its start in 1974 as Gentle Thursday to its current incarnation, Penn State's Movin' On outdoor music festival has provided students with an entire day of free, live, original music during the spring semester. However, the festival has changed significantly over the past five years and with shifts in outside involvement and management, some have felt disenchanted with the festival.

The Old Days

Although he doesn't recall the exact dates, Ted Swanson is reminiscing about April 2002 and April 2003. Judging by the tone of his voice, he's remembering those days quite fondly -- after all, those were the dates of Movin' On.

The annual free all-day music festival put on by Penn State students for Penn State students was a gig that, at the time, was the biggest college-run music festival on the East Coast, Swanson said.

"The years that Wilco was there and Jimmy Eat World and Pete Yorn, I was so proud to be a Penn State alumni," Swanson, a local band promoter, said. "That was the best show you could see in the United States of America ... for free."

Swanson, who is responsible for bringing bands such as Dinosaur Jr., Illinois, The Lemonheads and The Hold Steady to Lulu's Night Spot, 129 S. Pugh St., said he worked as a "volunteer adviser" with Movin' On for nine years on and off during the '90s and early 2000s.

"It was basically sitting in on their meetings and figuring out what they wanted to do," Swanson said. "Every group of students would have different priorities, but I just wanted to help facilitate keeping the festival going."

In his time as a volunteer adviser, Swanson aided the student committee in landing Sonic Youth, Jimmy Eat World, Wilco, Pete Yorn, Run-DMC, Guided By Voices and Drive-By Truckers -- to name a few. Swanson said he made sure not to step on any students' toes.

"I'm not interested in doing their event, I was interested in facilitating their event," he said. "If they gave me 10 bands that they knew were available, I'd give them a list of 25."

But it wasn't just Swanson advising the committee.

"Anybody who did music in town had some kind of input with them. It was very casual," Swanson said. "They reached out more to get the best they could get."

But in 2004, a year after Movin' On featured Wilco as its headliner, Swanson said he was no longer invited to sit in on committee meetings.

Neither was Greg Gabbard, owner of City Lights Records, 316 E. College Ave., who was also advising the committee.

In fact, the committee closed its doors entirely to all promoters and made the process completely in-house, Swanson said.

They now use only the committee, core members and street team members as sources for what bands to bring in, one assistant director of the event Kristen Laino (senior-public relations) said.

"I don't know what happened," Gabbard said. "I know Ted was responsible for bringing in a lot of bands."

Gabbard said his role in the decision-making process was simply giving advice to the committee as someone who possesses a lot of musical knowledge. He said the committee would come to him for information on which bands' albums were selling well and other indicators of what music was popular with students.

"Mainly, I was a sounding board for the people who were working on it," Gabbard said.

And now, without the diversity of opinion that fueled it in the past, some students and promoters believe the festival has found itself in a rut.

"I used to pay attention to it," Jesse Ruegg, promoter for Roustabout! shows, said. "Now it's so far off my radar that I don't even look for it. It's irrelevant to me and irrelevant to a vibrant music community."

The lack of differing opinions in the decision-making process has led to less variation in the show's lineup, Gabbard said.

"The main problem is only a few people are picking the bands," Gabbard said. "I would like to see some more diverse bands, rather than four or five pop-punk bands."

Kyle Leach, a disc jockey on Monday's Indie 500 show on The Lion 90.7 FM, said his main complaint is the lack of diversity among the styles of music represented.

"They probably could've gotten a lot better bands," he said.

Leach (freshman-business management) is a State College resident and has attended Movin' On for several years. He said recent Movin' On lineups have focused too heavily on the pop-rock and emo genres, with the occasional inclusion of hip-hop artists. He said 2006's show with Talib Kweli was one of his favorites, along with Raekwon's performance last year.

"I'm not a big rap fan," Leach said. "But it really seems like the best quality acts have been the rap artists."

On the subject of the current trend of bands that Movin' On brings in, Swanson chooses his words carefully. He said he knows how hard this task is for the student volunteers, but he wants the information to be known.

"The festival in general has kind of flatlined a little bit," Swanson said. "They've definitely moved away from diversity. I don't think they're as interested in having different kinds of music."

The New Days

It's 10:09 on a Monday night and Joshua Kneal, director for Movin' On 2009, is dead tired.

"My day started at 7 a.m. and I just got back to my room now," Kneal (junior-athletic training) said.

Being the director for the annual festival is not an easy job. Besides overseeing the entire festival, the band selection process is done entirely by Kneal and the two assistant directors, Laino and Sara Roser-Jones (senior-biology).

Brittany Notor, who is in charge of public relations for Movin' On, said most of the committee's members aren't involved with the selection process for the main stage bands.

"A majority of the committee finds out about the bands when the public finds out," Notor (freshman-architectural engineering) said.

She said a goal of the committee was to expand the number of musical genres represented at Movin' On to appeal to more students.

Kneal added they hear suggestions from the whole Movin' On committee and street team regarding what bands they should bring in. When students applied for positions on the Movin' On committee, Kneal said he gave each applicant three genres and had them choose what band they would like to see from each.

"We try to look at the responses as a whole to make our decision," he said. "Everyone has their own choice. We try to focus basically on the entire campus."

Though some express the opinion the committee has lost sight of diversity, Kneal and Laino firmly maintain the committee has always looked for diversity when booking bands and doesn't just specifically target pop-rock/emo bands.

"It's such a large population, obviously students are going to have different interests," Laino said. "With the student bands we brought in this year, no two sound alike. It is unfortunate that a lot of the times we hear more of the negativity... It's just something you have to deal with. Nobody's going to always like everything you do."

Kneal shares his colleague's sentiment, saying they try their best with their limited resources.

"I consider it a challenge to find an act or acts that appeal to an entire campus," Kneal said. "We're not going to be able to give everybody what they want. As long as we can give to a majority of students, then I think what we've done is fantastic."

Garret Bogden, a promoter for Nittany Booking, shares the committee's point of view and thinks detractors of the event should re-evaluate their opinions.

"It's really unfair for people to judge," Bogden said. "I think they can only do so much with what they have to work with."

While Bogden doesn't know the exact amount, he believes Movin' On has been receiving less money from the university, which would play a definite role in which acts can be brought on.

Kneal and Laino said a small budget coupled with the current economic state makes booking bands a challenge. On top of that, Kneal added that, the funds they receive from the University Park Allocation Committee (UPAC) are bracketed, meaning only certain money is allotted for certain items.

"Say our budget is $60,000. We can't just be like, 'Well, we want to use 40 [thousand] of that for bands,' " Laino said. "We use the money for what it's allocated for. If we get $40,000 for the stage and it only costs 30 [thousand], we can't take that extra $10,000 and put it somewhere else."

So, the question becomes: How much is allotted for bands?

Kendra Carr, UPAC overall chairwoman, said the overall budget for this year's Movin' On was $67,870.19 and $20,000 of that money was allocated for bands in the following categories: $10,000 for a headlining band and $6,500, $3,000 and $500 for three supporting bands, respectively.

Laino said the allotment for bands is a small percentage -- which is why the committee looks for sponsors to contribute financially to the acts.

But Kneal said the country's struggling economy has made it difficult to secure sponsors for the event compared to previous events.

"Sponsorship chairs worked a straight month and a half and the responses were 'Sorry, money is tight.' " Kneal said.

Money's not just scarce for Movin' On and its sponsors. Gabbard said bands are also feeling the squeeze, especially in the form of spiraling album sales, and the need to earn more from live performances to make up for those losses.

"It's difficult because the bands are asking for more money," Gabbard said.

When money is tight, Bogden said, putting on a music festival gets challenging. He added some naysayers are forgetting a crucial element to this festival.

"A lot of people don't take into consideration that this is free," Bogden said.

Mixing the Old with the New

Nicole Reed, Class of 2005, was driving through downtown Chicago traffic as she recounted her days as public relations director for Movin' On 2003, 2004 and 2005.

She said the 2004 director and assistant directors would know better than she, but she has an idea as to why Swanson wasn't asked to help with Movin' On post 2003.

"We kind of didn't see eye to eye with Ted anymore," Reed said. "If I recall correctly ... Revolution 101 was changing their format and we didn't feel their format represented what Movin' On was about, which was marginally a rock and roll festival. I believe Revolution turned pop or top 40."

But Swanson said radio stations are just one of the many sponsors of Movin' On and which radio station they picked had little to do with Swanson. He hints Wilco may have disappointed the 2004 committee and caused them to look for other types of talen. But he can't be sure.

Reed doesn't think the 2003 lineup with Wilco had anything to do with the distancing from Swanson and other music-minded locals. She mentioned 2003 was the first year that allowed outsiders, like Reed, who weren't directly involved with Association of Residence Hall Students (ARHS) onto the committee.

"It's an ARHS program and the year I started, a lot of outsiders got positions on the committee," Reed said. "I can name three or four other people that were complete outsiders and ... brought a new perspective on musical tastes. That may have had something to do with it."

All things considered, Swanson is not aggravated or bitter toward the committee. Though he said he understands others' frustrations with the recent trend of bands, he also sympathizes with the committee.

"In all fairness, they have so much work to do to put that show on. Their meetings start in the summer," he said. "When I wasn't able to help them as an alumni, I didn't get upset. It's for them; it's their thing. There's not one kid on that board that doesn't want to put on the best show possible."

Since Movin' On broke off contact with promoters in town, directors have passed their knowledge and experience on to future directors. Kneal said he still consults past directors when he needs help or suggestions.

What may seem surprising is that Laino and Kneal didn't have any idea of who Swanson was or his involvement with Movin' On in the past. Being juniors and seniors, they couldn't say why the committee decided to break off contact six years ago with the local promoters.

"I've only been around since 2006. I wasn't around when these decisions were made," Laino said. "I honestly didn't know that's how it used to work because we just follow in the footsteps of the previous directors and the last few we've been in contact with have not offered information like that."

Both Kneal and Laino said working with Swanson and any parties interested in helping out would be something they would consider. Though Laino said she isn't returning to her assistant director position next year because she will be graduating, she did say she would suggest that future committees work with local promoters

"We're always looking for ways to improve Movin' On and I think that I would be willing to talk to them about it," Laino said. "I don't see why they wouldn't be interested if it would be a benefit to them."

Swanson, too, wonders why he hasn't contacted Movin' On after all these years.

"I'm starting to think about why I didn't go back and revisit this," he said. "I would help them in any way possible. If they were interested and they needed it, I'd be 100 percent behind it."

Others also express their willingness to help out the cause. Ruegg offered his support, as did Gabbard.

"I love to give my opinion, and I give it for free," Gabbard said.

Students Organizing the Multiple Arts (SOMA) Vice President Danny Michelson said SOMA would also be willing to give a hand.

"SOMA is very unselfish. We love to help anyone out that wants to bring more art and more music to State College and Penn State," Michelson (junior-film) said. "If they asked us, we'd give them 100 suggestions. We'd help out any way we could."

Kneal stressed the committee is always looking for and accepting suggestions from anyone interested in giving them.

But Swanson believes it will take more than just promoters and the committee working together. He urged a certain group of people to get involved if they want to change things: the students.

"All you gotta do is show up for the committee meetings, become a member ... and voice your opinion," he said, adding those who stand out as the loudest will probably get the show they desire.

"Hopefully there will be kids who get a call to action and say, 'I'm a sophomore and I still have two more years. Next year I'm coming back and I'm getting on that damn committee and I'm gonna help that thing go back to where it was or make it what it should be.'"