Rock ‘n’ Roll’s Main Event: a Loss of $1.5 Million : Pop music: Poor attendance and financial woes forced the promoter to scrap the final day.

The promoter of last weekend’s Rock ‘n’ Roll’s Main Event at Glen Helen Regional Park in San Bernardino County said on Wednesday that he lost more than $1.5 million on the aborted festival.

Michael Scafuto, the Montclair club owner who produced the outdoor affair, said he generated only $15,000 in ticket sales on Saturday and Sunday. As a result, he canceled the third and final day of the festival Monday, but promised to refund the price of admission to those who purchased tickets in advance.

Despite crowd projections of 30,000 per day, attendance figures never rose above 2,000 on Saturday and 4,000 on Sunday. Scafuto said he realized the depth of his fiscal crisis when he was forced to ask his bank to open its doors Sunday afternoon to provide him with enough cash to pay the acts he hired.

Scafuto, who spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in promotion, said he could not understand why so few attended.

But Moss Jacobs, general manager of Avalon Attractions, Southern California’s largest independent concert company, attributed the event’s poor attendance to a combination of factors.

Jacobs said he thought the hot and dry weather associated with San Bernardino County probably played an important part in the concert’s low draw. He also pointed to the “mix-and-match” roster of artists as a possible setback.

“The promoter did not direct his lineup at any specific audience,” Jacobs said.

Another factor, Jacobs speculated, was the fact that September is typically considered to be a slow month in the concert industry. He also said business has been down across the board in the concert industry.

While Scafuto said he still owed at least one government agency additional money for permit fees, he maintained that all the artists who performed Saturday and Sunday were paid in full.

Still, some entertainers scheduled to play on Monday have yet to receive half of their fees. Geoffrey Blumenauer, who represents John Sebastian and Brewer and Shipley, two acts scheduled to perform on Monday, said Scafuto told him he had no money at this time to complete the transaction, but offered to sign a note promising payment.