The Rockettes Own Christmas. But Spring Is a Tough Nut to Crack.

Devising a new annual entertainment tradition in an era when people have so many options, however, has bedeviled producers across fields like theater, circus, art, and concert festivals.

“The ‘Christmas Spectacular’ is spectacularly successful, but a strong part of its pull is nostalgia and tradition,” said Drew Hodges, the founder of SpotCo Advertising who worked on Rockettes projects in the past, and is now an independent consultant for producers of live entertainment. “It’s difficult to build a new tradition — it takes years — and even harder to create a family-friendly entertainment that fills 6,000 seats a night,” referring to the seating capacity at Radio City Music Hall.

Time would seem to have run out for this coming spring. None of the behind-the-scenes work needed to mount a major new production is taking place, and this month the Tony Awards said it would return to Radio City on June 10, all but precluding a late-spring show as well.

Rhonda Malkin, a dance coach who has trained dozens of Rockettes, noted that the company has tried and failed to create various shows for the group over the last 15 years. She admired the most recent iteration of the late-spring show, overseen by the choreographer Mia Michaels, and said that Rockettes were excited to perform it again.

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“Radio City tends to build a big show and then at the last minute either do away with it or change it or not put it up,” Ms. Malkin said.

For years now, Madison Square Garden Company has faltered in its artistic choices for a new Rockettes franchise — a creative development process that started becoming bumpy in 2014 because of Mr. Weinstein, the film mogul who was fired as co-chairman of the Weinstein Company this month amid allegations of sexual harassment and assault.

That year, Mr. Weinstein played a key role in the decision to scrap a multimillion-dollar new springtime Rockettes show, “Heart and Lights.” He did not have an official role on the production, but attended a run-through with his friend Mr. Dolan, and was among those voicing doubts about the show’s book and songs. The show was canceled, and its creative team was soon gone, including Linda Haberman, the respected artistic director of the Rockettes since 2006.

The following year Mr. Weinstein was brought onboard to overhaul the show and serve as its producer. He remade it and brought on a raft of stars, but it was not a success: Reviewing it in The New York Times, Charles Isherwood praised the Rockettes but little else, describing the show as a “numbingly overblown 90-minute infomercial.”

Another shake-up was ordered for 2016. Mr. Weinstein was no longer its producer, Ms. Michaels became its new director and choreographer, and the playwright Douglas Carter Beane wrote a new script. But that version was not a success either. A Madison Square Garden Company earnings report issued for the fourth quarter of 2016 said that it took in less revenue “due to fewer scheduled performances, a result of a shift in the timing of the production’s run from the spring to the summer, and, to a lesser extent, lower per-show revenue.”

Last winter there were indications that another overhaul was in the works. After a number of Rockettes expressed concerns about performing at the inauguration of President Trump, Marie Claire magazine published leaked remarks that Mr. Dolan made to a group of the dancers.

“I don’t believe it’s going to hurt the brand,” the magazine quoted him as saying. “And nobody is more concerned about that than the guy sitting in this chair. I’m about to spend $50 million remounting this summer show. I’m going to spend a similar amount remounting next year’s Christmas show. I gotta sell tickets.”

But in February the Madison Square Garden Company announced that it would not be going forward with its 2017 show by Ms. Michaels after all. It said it would take “a one-year hiatus,” adding that “we remain committed to the production and look forward to the show’s return in 2018.”

Several Rockettes had been eager to return to Ms. Michaels’s show, according to Ms. Malkin. The show was expected to include a mix of precision dancing and other choreography that was different from the Christmastime production.

“As a former Rockette and dancer, I thought it was refreshing to see the Rockettes do a different style and do it so incredibly well with the precision aspect in tact,” Ms. Malkin said. “But in terms of where the audience as a whole is coming from, I guess they were expecting more of what they see for Christmas.”

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