By Rachel Boon

Pyrotechnics plus fire flames, 64 canisters of confetti, fountains shooting water up to 8m high are some of the highlights of SMTown Live in Singapore at The Float @ Marina Bay this Friday.

It is the SMTown Live World Tour III, showcasing artists under top Korean label S.M. Entertainment. The tour is coming here for the first time and it is the biggest ever K-pop concert to be staged in Singapore.

The four-hour, multi-act concert being staged here at a cost of $5 million will feature performances by iconic Korean acts including Super Junior and Girls' Generation.

Running Into The Sun's creative director Beatrice Chia-Richmond, who was also the creative director of last year's National Day Parade, says "both events are similar in scale, (involving) massive staging, effort, excitement and, of course, time taken".

As for the floating platform that SMTown Live will perform on, and the scene of many a nation-building moment, it is the world's largest floating stage at 120m long and 83m wide. The platform has been used for National Day parades since 2007 and also has a 27,000-seat gallery.

Out of 23,000 tickets that went on sale, only 1,000 remain, priced at $218 and $168. Top-tier tickets for the 4,000-capacity mosh pits, along with VIP and premier gallery seats, have sold out.

The stage set-up alone costs half of the total production value of $5 million.

At least 96 hours are needed to set up the stage, with equipment coming from Singapore, Malaysia and South Korea.