Last weekend, the Big City Summer Fest wrapped up with Ribbin' on the River, a barbecue-and-blues event held next door to Blue Cross Arena. It was a respectable ending to what was overall a rather shaky affair, with the festival plagued by poor timing, bad weather, the state liquor authority, the High Falls curse, constantly shifting band schedules, and a public reluctant to buy tickets.

In an interview earlier this week, promoter Jeff Springut assessed the festival, which ran 12 days over the course of three weekends. Although he says that attendance was not what he'd hoped for, "the whole thing was respectable. We had some bumps in the road," he says.

For some that would be understatement: Big City Summer Fest started with big hopes, specifically to bring attention to the flagging High Falls district. In March Springut traveled to the South by Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas, with the goal of recruiting up-and-coming talent. Months went by before line-ups were announced, with headliners The Doobie Brothers and Susan Tedeschi flanked by more obscure acts like Alejandro Escovedo and Ruthie Foster. The three weekends - June 28-July 1, July 19-22, July 26-29 - were broken into musical themes, and the plan was for concerts to take place in six vacant High Falls venues, with festivalgoers gaining access by purchasing a badge, like the Rochester International Jazz Fest Club Pass. The initial price was $140 for a nine-day pass and admission to the Doobie and Tedeschi shows in Highland Bowl; $95 for a nine-day club badge; or $10-$25 for single concerts.

The problems started even before the opening Americana-themed weekend, as line-ups changed rapidly; the official festival program was outdated by the time it hit the street.

Much of the shake-up had to do with liquor licenses falling through for all of the High Falls venues. That meant that beer was available only at the outdoor tent, and that all of the indoor venues were dry, dry, dry. Since booze and music go hand in hand at many festivals, several of the later indoor shows were sparsely attended.

Losing the liquor license was a big blow, Springut said, and he puts much of the blame on not having the time to get everything lined up properly. "I think everyone made their best effort in the time frame and under the circumstances that we had to work with," he said. "If you had to pick a bad time you couldn't have picked a better time."

The next weekend, the world-beat portion of the event, saw more schedule shuffling; all of the indoor venues were scrapped with the exception of the former Empire Brewing Co. (which did get its beer and wine permit), and the rest of the concerts moved to outside stages. The move brought another problem: how do you justify charging $10 to $25 for an outdoor show?

Springut's answer: You don't. "I couldn't justify charging a $10 ticket," he said. "At first we said, ‘The bands are the same, let's charge 10 bucks," he said. But ultimately he decided to go free. "I said, ‘Let's just get some good crowds enjoying this music. Let's give our sponsors kudos for coming up with a little extra cake to help do that, we'll take a little bit of a hit, and year one, you know what? Let's just turn people on to some great music.'"

That left the only ticketed events the two Highland Bowl concerts (the Doobies proved a medium draw, although Tedeschi did better) and the shows at the Empire Brewing Co.

"The original concept was to build a club scene around it," Springut said. "It's funny; when you take things from a club and put them on the street, it lessens the value of it. I think when they see things on the street, people expect to pay little or nothing for it because of what goes on the streets of our city. I think it's interesting how a club adds a certain amount of legitimacy to a group. Most of the things that are on the streets of our city are free, i.e. Jazz Fest, Party in The Park. And those [feature] headlining bands."

The biggest response came from the blues and barbeque set-up along the Genesee River near Blue Cross Arena last weekend, although that too saw its share of woes. Some highly anticipated acts like Escovedo and Al Kooper were cancelled, and bad weather forced the event inside the arena the first night.

"We always knew that the blues and the barbeque were going to be the easiest to sell," said Springut, "because it's the easiest to relate to."

Through it all the festival and Springut were heavily criticized by the media, especially the Democrat and Chronicle's Jeff Spevak, who took issue with the pricing, the scheduling chaos, the liquor debacle, etc., especially given Springut's decades-long history as a successful club and concert promoter.

Springut says he did the best he could in some rough situations. "Look, we've taken lumps in the past and we're experienced at this," he says. "And we made a conscious decision. When we had those problems with the liquor authority and we realized we couldn't get permits for the inside venues, at that point in time we could have very easily cancelled everything. That was a real option. We got together with our sponsors and our sponsors said, ‘No, let's keep it going.'"

It's too early to tell if the event will return next year, Springut said. "We haven't recovered from this one yet," he said. "We need a little bit of healing time and regrouping." Still, he's optimistic that Big City Summer Fest may have a future. "Next year definitely looks like a prospect," he said. "We got so much good response."

-- With additional reporting from Frank De Blase