Scottish band Wet Wet Wet and English singer Lisa Stansfield will appear at the $20 million Celebrate Hong Kong 1997 concert on July 5.
Also confirmed are American rhythm and blues group All-4-One, China's Dadawa and Zhou Feng, British act Brand New Heavies, South African band Mango Groove, Jamaican group Saint & Campbell, Swedish techno-pop act Freebee and Japan's Eguchi Yosuke.
Anders Nelsson, managing director of concert presenters Media Bank Entertainment, said 40,000 people were expected to attend the six-hour concert at Happy Valley racecourse.
Mr Nelsson and concert promoters and producers Frontier Touring are hoping to add another seven or eight international names to the final list of performers. 'We were approached in January to put something big together for pop music fans with international tastes,' Mr Nelsson said. 'The brief was to get the message out to the rest of the world that Hong Kong would still party and that it will be business as usual here after the handover.' Although the concert was originally planned for July 2 at Sha Tin racecourse, it was decided to move it to Happy Valley for July 5, as the climax to the handover celebrations.
Mr Nelsson said: 'July 5 was a better day all round because transport and security would have been a nightmare for July 2, not to mention flights and hotels.' He said police had pledged full support for crowd control outside the racecourse and the organisers would be hiring more than 200 plain-clothes security guards.
Tickets for the concert, which go on sale today, are priced at $297, $597 and $997. Proceeds will go to charities to be designated by the concert's official patron, Betty Tung Chiu Hun-ping.
