The first survey for Penn State’s Movin’ On festival has been available since late September. With a wide range of artists (Tyler the Creator, Citizen Cope, Weezer, Snoop Dogg) to choose from, organizers have gotten the hype out early.

But is that all the survey is? A little bit of hype to shake up the fall semester?

In an email interview, Director of Marketing Dan Kramer shed some light on how the survey is put together and used for the spring concert. “For our first survey, we compiled a huge list of artists based on opinions of the directors and our liaisons,” Kramer said.

With that first draft, the organization then begins to check availability. Artists are cut from the list if they have other “commitments,” “cost too much,” or if they simply “will not play a college show,” he said.

After that process is completed, the artists for the first survey are released for student voting. According to Kramer though, “the list of artists on the first survey is not the finite pool of artists which will be chosen from for the final lineup.”

This makes the first survey less of a definite selection and more of an educated guess, with other artists possibly gracing future surveys.

“As more possibilities for our lineup become available, we need more feedback from students,” Kramer added.

However, there is one aspect of the surveys which may upset some students: the results aren’t made public.

“We actually do not release the survey results because we use them as a way to guide our artist selection process,” said Bryn Gelaro, the overall director of Movin’ On. The organization keeps the results secret until they announce the bands.

Kramer also added that the “results do not determine exactly who will be selected, but rather what artists we will try to book.” The organizers don’t want to give the students “false hope” and want to maintain “an element of surprise” until the artists are booked, he said.

There are more surveys on the way, but just remember that many other factors contribute to who will entertain Penn State with their musical talents come springtime.