The University donates the space. The students take over the rest. Fraternities and sororities travel all over the east coast and stand on street corners and visit buildings and make phone calls, asking for donations. They work in teams, and work in competition against each other, and they pull together from all over the University. Penn State has 23 campuses, and most of them send dancers and raise money.
Independent organizations join the Greek societies on the dance floor.
There are battles of bands that act both as fund-raisers and as competitions to decide which bands will perform at the 'Thon. All this internal competition has consistently raised the bar. Thon takes place in mid-February, usually around Valentine's Day. At 7 pm on Friday evening, the chairperson tells the dancers to get on their feet, to great cheers. For 48 hours, the dancers cannot sit down.