I was in Israel in 1958 when a young ,hardly known, pianist was scheduled to perform. He came on the stage sat down at the piano and announced that it was too cold to take off his gloves and that he wouldn't perform. That night he announced strong opposition to public concerts. I'm sure those concert goers were very unhappy.
As time went on they learned that the pianist, Glenn Gould, was to be considered one of the greatest of all pianists and that that night was the last of his public performances for a long time. A memory and a concert to talk about for decades. He relented for awhile. His final final performance was in 1964.
Another concert.
I put on an evening hippie event where the speaker was Abbie Hoffman (I put on many events, concerts and theater productions). I started the event with a local popular rock band.
As the band was playing, I went out to the van where Abbie was sitting and told him it was time to come in. He said ‘no!’. He was leaving and not giving his talk because he was paranoid in the extreme, probably due to drugs.
I had to go back into the auditorium and announced that Abbie Hoffman wasn't coming and refunds were available at the entrance. I manned the entrance expecting to lose all my money spent on hiring the band and renting the hall.
That is a concert I won't forget because half the people stayed to dance and I didn't lose money.