Planning the annual Singapore Fashion Festival (SFF) takes some doing. It includes setting up the lighting, stage and music for over 50 fashion designers and labels, choreographing more than 20 shows and entertaining guests

This year, local events company Mercury Marketing takes over from Australian-based fashion events giant IMG-Pico, which has organised the consumer- and retail-driven event for the past three years.

Mercury did it once in 2004, when shows by luxury fashion house Chanel and Welsh fashion designer Julien MacDonald opened and closed the event respectively.

All eyes are on the 12-man-strong Mercury and local fashion choreographer Daniel Boey, the appointed creative director, to see if they can deliver.

Despite its high glam factor, the seven-year-old SFF has become notorious for tardy schedules, long lines at the door and designers pulling out at the last minute due, reportedly, to the high cost of participation.

It is said to cost a designer or brand an average of $30,000 for a show slot.

Tjin Lee, 34, managing director of Mercury, says her team is working against time having been appointed only in September, but promises that event-goers will see some positive changes.

For instance, as part of crowd control, tickets to some of the public shows will go on sale 'for a nominal fee' at Sistic instead of being given out free online.

And instead of queueing in a long line - how unglamorous - for entry, Mercury is in talks to introduce a Singapore-patented Radio Frequency Identification System so that guests can waltz right in.

While details of who and what will show on the catwalk have not been confirmed, Lee says she is currently talking to 'a very exciting A-list brand' for a trunk show which will allow event-goers to buy the designs at the show itself.

Local designers are also expected to make up 20 per cent of the line-up this year, as in previous years.

Is this year's SFF going to rock or flop? We're keeping our fingers crossed till March 28, when the nine-day event kicks off.