Nguyen Trong Ngoc, director of the local D&D Entertainment Company, the co-organizer of the shows together with the Republic of Korea’s EnterOne Corp., said the best seats had been mostly snapped up by fans from Japan, Hong Kong, Korea, and Thailand.  Half of the cheapest tickets had also been sold.

Around 80 percent of the work for the bash was complete with equipment coming in since Monday. The 29 tons of musical instruments would arrive Wednesday.

R&B and pop singer, hip-hop dancer Rain, also known as Bi, will perform 19 songs using state-of-the-art media, sound, and light equipment. Besides, for the first time in Vietnam, seven giant screens including five LED screens will be set up on stage.

A bevy of talented producers and stage designers like Jamie King, Dago Gonzales, Thomas J.Hudak, Roy Bennett – famous for their involvement with Michael Jackson, Ricky Martin, Madonna, U2, Britney Spears, and The Rolling Stones – will work behind the scenes.

Ngoc said his company would employ over 600 professional bodyguards and had also asked the police to provide security for as many as 50,000 people expected to watch the shows.

Rain would arrive in HCMC three days before the show and would stay at the New World hotel.

His Vietnam tour is among 35 shows in the RAIN WORLD TOUR 06-07 that will drench 11 countries and territories. The world tour, whose tickets sales are expected to gross over US$100 million, was launched in December 2006 and is scheduled to go on until May.

The world's second most influential entertainer, as designated by Time magazine in 2006, Rain, became interested in R&B and hip-hop dancing when he was in sixth grade.

Since debuting with the album Rain in 2002 and a number of awards later – including MTV Asia Grand Slam, MTV Korea Channel [V] Best Single Award, MTV Video Music Awards Japan, M.NET Male Artist Award, Asia TV Awards – his fame has spread worldwide not only as singer but also actor.

His tour RAINY DAY 2005 received rave reviews all over Asia with tickets selling out no sooner than they went on sale.

This will be his second trip to Vietnam after a show last June that attracted over 20,000 screaming fans.

Next week’s Rain’s Coming show at the Military Zone 7 stadium will cost some $2.8 million to produce, the most expensive ever in Vietnam. Ticket prices range from VND250,000 to VND2.5 million ($15.5-$155.4).

Source: Thanh Nien, VietNamNet – Compiled by Luu Thi Hong