L.A. Festival Ends With Sparse Turnout : Celebrations: Fear of large crowds may have prompted decision by many to stay home, event official says.

As jazz musicians played their hearts out under a rainbow-hued tarp at the Santa Monica Pier on Sunday, a disappointing crowd of 2,000 was on hand for the last day of the 1990 Los Angeles Festival.

But even many of those who came to the last event of the 16-day celebration of cultures in Los Angeles could not make sense of the assortment of circus booths offering food and crafts from around the world.

“We’ve been here for an hour and we still don’t know what it is,” said Jack Allen, of San Francisco, who was lured to the pier by the strains of jazz. “It seems to be a collection of vending booths.”

Indeed, at a booth hawking official L.A. Festival T-shirts, a saleswoman complained: “We’ve had people come up and ask, ‘When is the L.A. Festival?’ I told them, ‘It’s now--you’re in it.’ ”

Festival officials were unable to account for the sparse turnout.

“We hoped for more people,” acknowledged Rudy Garza, head of publicity for the free event. He theorized that, perhaps, people were afraid it would be too crowded and stayed home.

“I’m sorry for the vendors and I’m sorry for the artists,” said Willow Young, festival village coordinator. “I’m sorry there aren’t more people to buy from them and take advantage of what they have to offer.”

The only crush of people to be seen in the area gathered to watch “Hank the Glass Walker” lie down on a pile of broken bottles as he does every weekend at the far end of the pier.

A woman who said she was recently fired as a merchandising manager for the festival, suggested that advertisements promoting the event “read like brochures for a museum.”

“They spent a lot of money advertising for a precious few,” she said. “It was a party for the culturally elite that no one else wanted.”

However, others associated with the L.A. Festival said that large crowds attended the other sites. Over the last 2 1/2 weeks, more than 1,400 artists, including 800 from the Los Angeles area, performed and displayed their works at 100 venues throughout the greater Los Angeles area.

The aim of the L.A. Festival was to accent Pacific Rim cultures, music and dance from Asia, Latin America, Oceania and Alaska. The festival programs were held in such diverse locations as Descanso Gardens in La Canada Flintridge and Angels Gate Park, which is in San Pedro.

RELATED STORIES IN CALENDAR: F8-F10