A huge music festival at the Contra Costa fairgrounds in Antioch has been canceled after some said there were signs it won't deliver on what it's promoting.
The XO Music Festival was canceled just two days before it was scheduled to take place, the CEO of Contra Costra Event Park announced Wednesday morning, saying "the promoter failed to provide the proper liability insurance for themselves as well as their contractors."
The festival had some big names attached to it: Ludacris, T.I., Flavor Flav and local artist Mistah Fab.
The Contra Costa District Attorney's Office said anyone seeking a refund for the festival tickets can call the Consumer Protection Unit at 925-957-8604 and fill out a complaint form here.
Battle rapper Pierre Reed, aka B.Nasty, said "it just turned into a big, big mess."
"I purchased a stage for $10,000," Reed said. "I charged artists $100 to get on. I had about 47 artists that was supposed to perform throughout the weekend."
On Tuesday night, there weren't any signs of preparations being made at the fairgrounds, and NBC Bay Area learned some performers who were once part of the lineup weren't coming.
Local
The festival had been heavily promoted on YouTube, and its website promised more than 100 music acts performing across seven stages from Friday to Sunday. On Wednesday, the festival website said the event needs to be postponed because of low ticket sales.
Bob Rosenberg, with the band Will to Power, was scheduled to play the first day. But he pulled out earlier, saying, "As of yet, we haven’t received a deposit or a contract."
"The original ads were saying these luxury hotels and air conditioned buses transporting everybody," he said. "Everything sounded too good to be true."
Flavor Flav still has the festival listed on his official websites. The group Bone Thugs-n-Harmony had removed the event of its website by Wednesday and Headliners T.I., the Sugar Hill Gang and Ludacris do not have the event listed.
Dave Brooks first reported on the growing questions about the festival on his website Amplyfi. While looking into the festival, he says he ran into a lot of road blocks, including the fact that some sponsors listed on the website were not associated with the event.
"The promoters of the event tried to conceal their identity from me," he said. "There was a resistance to answer basic questions."
When he finally got a contract for the XO Music Festival concert, he found the name of a man known as Sami Habib, who has been accused of real estate fraud in Fremont.
"He said his lawyer would contact me, and we could go from there about getting monies back," Reed said.
In the meantime, Reed said he’s going to pay back artists from his own pocket until he gets his money from Habib.
Habib could not be reached for comment.
NBC Bay Area's Anoushah Rasta contributed to this report.
