By Terry Karkos,Staff Writer

RUMFORD – The blame game behind the canceled Moontide Music Festival began in earnest on Thursday.

The concert, which was canceled Wednesday, was to feature the nationally known Gregg Rolie Band and several Maine bands to help pay off debts incurred from this year’s Moontide Fourth of July celebration.

On Thursday, both Moontide President and festival co-organizer Joe Roberts and co-organizer and promoter Jim Viger explained why the event was canceled right before the show.

They blamed poor ticket sales, the inability of a Portland percussion store to get special Latin music drum sets required by the Rolie band’s management, and the band’s booking agency.

“We didn’t cancel this, we tried to change the date,” said Rumford resident Viger of their attempt to reschedule the show to Sept. 24 to give them more time.

However, both the owner of the Portland store and a contract agent for the band’s booking agency blamed Viger and Roberts.

Mike Sanguillo, owner and manager of Portland Percussion and Music Supply, said late Thursday that he told Viger he had the required sets of Latin Percussion timbales and timbalitos at his store, ready for the show.

Timbales are 14-inch and 15-inch metal drums like tom-toms; timbalitos are smaller versions, Sanguillo said.

“They can’t use me for an excuse,” Sanguillo said.

“I’ve got $1,397 worth of timbales and timbalitos sitting right here,” he said.

“Jimmy can blame anyone he wants to, but he could have promoted this a lot better. I think they had a good idea, but the bottom line is that they didn’t have the cash. Three days from the show, I think he panicked,” Sanguillo said of Viger.

He also blamed a lack of advertising for the failure.

But ticket sales told the story.

Carol Smith of Mexico said 12 tickets were sold in Rumford and Mexico for this Sunday’s Moontide Music Festival since Aug. 1, the day that 6,000 tickets for the event went on sale. This doesn’t include the 20 to 30 tickets that Roberts says were sold from his Rumford business.

There was also some dispute over who pulled the plug.

“I was told that the promoter (Viger) canceled it,” said Candy Bahr, a contracts manager for the Rolie band’s booking agency, Fantasma Tours, of West Palm Beach, Fla.

When pressed for more information, she deferred to the company, which did not return calls Thursday.

Viger and Roberts hotly contested responses from Sanguillo and Bahr.

“There’s a lot of lying going on, and it’s not from Joe or me,” Viger said.

Still, Roberts said he couldn’t understand all the fuss being made about the failed show.

“We’ve been right upfront with everybody. There has been no shenanigans, no underhanded dealings, and no misappropriation of money. All of the money has been accounted for,” Roberts said.

“We did everything that was humanly possible, but it was literally taken out of our hands. What is the big deal? It’s simply a failed event,” he said, raising his voice.

Roberts added that people who purchased tickets “and want their money refunded” need to return to where they bought them, and get a ticket refund request form. He said they should mail the form to the address listed on it, along with the ticket, and the money would be refunded.

In some cases, individual ticket sellers had already refunded money.

Jim Foy of Lewiston, a member of the band Damaged Goods, which was to perform at the event, said the problem with the canceled festival was a combination of bad timing and low ticket sales.

“Ticket sales were not going as expected, and they were timing it with the balloon festival in Lewiston and Auburn. Changing the date would have worked,” Foy said.

Despite the failure, Roberts said Moontide has other fund-raisers planned to try to raise money.