Riot Benefit Concert Postponed Amid Sluggish Sales : Pop music: Promoters charge that music industry apathy and lack of ‘A-list’ artists have undermined their efforts.

Plans for the only post-riot all-star pop benefit to have made it beyond the talking stages are now up in the air, with discouraged organizers charging that lack of support from artists and the music industry has undermined their efforts.

L.A. HomeAid, an R&B-oriented; concert originally planned for Sept. 5 at the 70,000-capacity Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, has been postponed indefinitely. A lack of ticket sales--only 1,000, despite such stars as Bell Biv DeVoe, Heavy D. and Tevin Campbell in the lineup--had already caused the show to be moved to the 15,000-seat Los Angeles Sports Arena.

Original hopes had been to raise more than $1 million, to be divided by Rebuild L.A., the First African Methodist Episcopal Church and various Los Angeles education programs, but so far only $40,000 has been collected.

“If this show was in any town but Los Angeles this would have been a smash,” said HomeAid co-chairman Lee Michaels, program director for L.A. radio station KJLH-FM. “We had a lack of support and expenses are too high. We could not get people to donate services, including the unions. “

The inability to get many “A-list” performers to commit to the benefit hurt the most, Michaels said. Resistance was particularly high among mainstream pop artists sought to balance the age and ethnic appeal of the concert, he added. Among the acts whose representatives were contacted were George Michael, Gloria Estefan, Motley Crue, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Michael Bolton and Rod Stewart, he said.

“They’d say, ‘Give me a call after you get somebody else committed,’ or, ‘Give me a call later because I’m not sure if (the act is) available,’ ” Michaels said. “I can understand some of the artists being skeptical to benefits. Some people have been burned in the past.”

Co-chairman Rick Bratman, president of Los Angeles sports and entertainment firm Fluid Marketing, said the hope had been that artists would see this effort as different. “No one was making any money at all from this. There were no promoter fees or consultant fees, and we felt the emotion in the city right now was so strong and the cause was so important that stars would jump on board. But, unfortunately, it didn’t happen.”

While Michaels said flatly that the concert had been canceled, Bratman insisted that it would be rescheduled. He is looking at dates early next year, he said, and still holds out hope that enough big-name artists will sign up that the show can be held at the Coliseum as originally planned.