TORONTO - The world's biggest Bollywood bash begins in Toronto on Thursday, as India's cinematic royalty makes a splashy bid for a piece of the North American box office.

The lavish, three-day showcase of film, music and fashion known as the International Indian Film Academy celebrations promises to unleash a cavalcade of South Asian song, dance and matinee idols. It all leads up to a performance-laden awards ceremony set for Saturday that is oft-described as the Indian Oscars.

Indian actor Boman Irani, who will co-host the festivities at the Rogers Centre, promises all the subtlety of an impromptu Bollywood group-sing when festivities officially launch.

"There's going to be a lot of song and dance, a lot of colour, a lot of costume, a lot of emotion," Irani says of the weekend spectacle, meant to promote South Asian entertainment stars abroad.

"It's like a Hindi film, actually, it will have everything -- it will have emotion, it will have comedy and it'll have music and dance and drama and glamour."

Commonly known as the IIFAs (pronounced Eye-fahs), the annual showcase of Indian talent had already whipped many local fans into a frenzy. By Tuesday, dozens of star-seekers had staked their position at "fan zones" at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel, where top celebs were expected to stay.

More than 200 filmmakers and stars are expected from India and overseas, including three generations of the famed Kapoor clan headed by legendary patriarch Raj Kapoor, the Deol dynasty including Dharmendra and his sons Sunny and Bobby, superstar Shah Rukh Khan, "Slumdog Millionaire" actor Anil Kapoor and actress Priyanka Chopra.

Various star-studded events include a film festival, music workshop, business forum and a music and fashion extravaganza known as IIFA Rocks. Friday's marquee concert is set to feature Jermaine Jackson in a special performance to commemorate the second anniversary of his brother Michael's death.

IIFA project head Noreen Khan says the Indian film industry recognized Canada's most populous city as a gateway to the North American market after seeing how the Toronto International Film Festival helped launch many projects -- including the Mumbai-set "Slumdog Millionaire" -- to Oscar glory.

"Toronto is known as the mecca for film," says Khan. "It's a great picturesque locale, it also has a growing South Asian population."

"We strategically have moved through Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Far East so we felt it was the right time to come into North America."

The 12-year-old celebrations have previously been held in London, Malaysia, Dubai, Amsterdam, Singapore, Bangkok, Macau and Johannesburg.

Toronto earned hosting duties after a bidding process that concluded in 2009, when trade between Ontario and India amounted to $1.5 billion. Almost 600,000 Ontarians have roots in India.

This weekend's $28-million party -- a cost shared by IIFA, sponsors and the province -- is expected to draw 40,000 tourists to various events throughout Toronto, as well as neighbouring Brampton, Mississauga and Markham.

Indo-Canadian actress Lisa Ray, who will be among the presenters at Saturday's awards ceremony, said she has mixed feelings about highlighting Bollywood's penchant for heightened emotion and over-the-top glitz.

But she says IIFA has proven adept at using Bollywood to market India and its burgeoning economy to a wide audience.

"I actually do salute the Ontario government for lobbying for it," says Ray.

"Right now the Indian middle class has ... a lot of disposable income and an appetite for travel, specifically. When they see that particular city flash on their TV screens, that city will often experience quite a dramatic influx of tourists from India."

Bollywood has consciously courted a more global audience by shooting in foreign locales, says Irani, whose aunt and cousins live in Toronto.

"We started shooting in London and Switzerland and .... Spain and then the States," he says of recent productions.

Irani's Hindi-language Toronto-set film "Kismat Konnection" was shot in the city 3 1/2 years ago.

"Because there is such a great expatriate population in North America we can weave our stories around those characters rather than saying these are characters who are living in India who are paying a visit. So the story itself could be set in New York or set in Toronto with people who are living here as characters."

Irani co-hosts Saturday's bash with Ritesh Deshmukh, who lands in Toronto to introduce his feature, "Double Dhamaal" with co-star Mallika Sherawat at a gala screening Thursday night.

The awards bash has proven to be the hot ticket of the weekend. All 16,000 of the 22,000 tickets available to the public sold out in minutes.

The multimillion-dollar show is being billed as the biggest production in the film academy's history. Organizers estimate the elaborate staging involves between 800 and 1,000 performers, crew, designers, production managers, and talent.

As per tradition, the opening performance will be produced by and feature its host country. Organizers say Ontario's tourism ministry has organized a three-and-a-half-minute song-and-dance number that will feature 120 performers, but details were scant.

"The segment will feature lively, dynamic and exciting song and dance performance and a theme song that represents all that Ontario has to offer," said a ministry spokesman.

Ray says the party is a chance for Indo-Canadians to celebrate their new homeland as much as it is a promotional vehicle for visiting Bollywood stars.

"This is also an opportunity for Indians who live here, who, for all intents and purposes have maybe not even been back to India in many, many years, to celebrate our culture and our identity here and put on a great show for Canada," says Ray, who was born in Toronto but launched her career in Mumbai and now splits her time between both cities.

Irani says the scale of Saturday's bash is especially impressive given the fact that the main organizers, Wizcraft International Entertainment, are based in Mumbai.

"It's a little scary when you think that you have to haul 400 people from India all the way here because logistically it turns out to be a very, very dangerous thing to do," says Irani, noting that organizers can't spontaneously hop on the next flight to troubleshoot lead-up preparations as they have in other cities.

"(But North America) is a territory that we are obliged to come and pay our respects. We've been to England a couple of times, we've been to Amsterdam, the Far East and Sri Lanka, and South Africa, but coming across all the way, 17 hours from India is a tough one. But I'm so glad that they've taken this big leap of a step because it's very, very important North America."

OMNI Television plans wall-to-wall coverage of pre-show and post-show events. The awards can be seen live via pay-per-view, with a delayed broadcast set for July 24 on OMNI.

Organizers say the ceremony has drawn a global television audience of more than 600 million in the past.

TIFF programmer Noah Cowan, who created a Raj Kapoor retrospective in tandem with the IIFAs, called the weekend festivities an "incredibly important event for Toronto" and expected it to help bridge cultural chasms.

"I think a lot of people turn on TV, see a Bollywood movie and it might as well be from outer space," says Cowan.

"But actually it comes from the same traditions as where Hollywood movies are now. This program should give people the key, or the password, to actually really get into these films and love them as much as we programmers do."

TIFF Bell Lightbox -- the home of the Toronto International Film Festival -- hosts a salute to the Kapoor dynasty on Sunday when the clan is expected to walk a red carpet and discuss their long and influential career.

Cowan expects more than just South Asian fans to appreciate that legacy.

"I think there's a lot of curiosity about Bollywood and these films are so beloved by so many people from the subcontinent that I think they might drag their non-Indian friends to come and experience it."

The way Irani sees it, the glamour and unabashed passion intrinsically linked with Bollywood cinema is what entertainment is all about.

"We sing, we dance, we express our emotions in a very, very different kind of way," Irani says simply.

"We'll express ourselves through music and I see nothing wrong with it because sometimes we want to run away from reality, don't we?"

"The agenda of (Bollywood) film is just to entertain. No political statements, no social statements, (just) entertainment.... People look at it as escapist fare and I see nothing wrong with it."

Celebrations for the International Indian Film Academy run Thursday through Saturday.