Less than a week after Korean pop star Rain's canceled Aloha Stadium concert, the event's local promoters have sued the Korean mega-star and his Seoul-based handlers, saying they "never actually intended to produce a concert in Hawai'i."

In a complaint filed in U.S. District Court yesterday, Hawai'i-based Click Entertainment Inc. alleged that Rain, whose real name is Jung Ji-hoon, and his South Korea-based producers, JYP Entertainment Co. and Star M Entertainment, defrauded it of more than $500,000 paid in licensing fees and other costs.

The suit, which was filed by local attorneys Eric Seitz and Ronald Kim, also said that Rain and his South Korea-based promoters "sought to defraud the general public by aggrandizing and exaggerating the scope of the 'Rain's Coming' world tour."

The concert was scheduled for last Friday but was canceled three days before it was supposed to go on.

"There seemed to be just a number of ... acts of bad faith that we have concluded in all likelihood that the people did not have the capacity to provide the entertainer or never intended to do so but took the money," Seitz said in a news conference yesterday.

Representatives for Rain, JYP Entertainment and Star M could not be reached for immediate comment.

A spokeswoman for Rain's North American promoter, Revolution Entertainment, which also was named in the suit, declined comment.

According to the lawsuit, Click reached an agreement this year with Revolution and Star M to stage a Rain concert here in July and wired more than $500,000 in licensing fees to Revolution's executives in South Korea.

Less than a month before the scheduled show, an executive with Star M, Rain's South Korea-based promoter, told Click that the stage setup at Aloha Stadium was inadequate.

Seitz said his clients addressed concerns about the staging but the South Korea-based promoters still canceled, saying there was not enough time to go on with the concert.

Star M, JYP and Revolution have refused to return the licensing fee, according to Click.

Seitz said that ticket sales were not a major factor in the cancellation.

The Advertiser reported on June 14 that local promoters sold just 1,500 of the event's 20,000 tickets two weeks after they went on sale. Seitz said promoters had sold about 5,000 tickets by the third week.

"We expected that there would be thousands more ticket sales right before the concert," Seitz said.

The Honolulu concert was one of five in Rain's six-city U.S. tour that was shelved. Concerts in San Francisco; Atlanta; New York; and San Jose, Calif., had been postponed and no new dates have been set.

A June 30 concert at Los Angeles' Staples Center will go on as planned.

Seitz, who estimated that Click suffered between $1 million and $2 million in general damages, said he will seek to attach the proceeds from the Los Angeles concert.

"If we get a judgment, he's not going to be able to perform in ... entertainment contracts in the United States because we will follow him wherever he goes and tie up all of the proceeds," Seitz said.

Reach Rick Daysog at rdaysog@honoluluadvertiser.com.