An annual international mud festival will open in the South Korean city of Boryeong on Friday under the slogan of "Let's Go to Boryeong and Play with Mud!," an official on the event's organizing committee said Wednesday.

"The 2017 Boryeong Mud Festival will open for a 10-day run at Daecheon Beach in the namesake city, 190km south of Seoul, on Friday," the official said.

Launched in 1998, the festival has developed into a top international summer event with its mud flats attracting many tourists from around the world. Rich in minerals, the mud is used in manufacturing cosmetics.

This year, the unique festival will present a total of 57 programs, ranging from bathing in a massive mud tub to mud massages, a mud photo contest, a marathon on the mud flats, a mud sliding competition, street parades and K-pop concerts, the official said.

The event's opening ceremony on Saturday night will be aired live as a special program on local TV, with the ceremony to feature Korean idol groups like Muses, Momoland and Block B Bastarz and EXID, as well as a war dance from the Maori tribe of New Zealand.

Thirty-three troupes will stage street performances, including magic, singing and dancing, throughout the festival.

Mud trams will also run on a 2.2-kilometer traffic-free road between the Mud Square and Civic Tower Square.  

By date, a Miss Mud contest will be held on Sunday; the Daecheon KBS Open Concert on Monday; a special concert by global star Psy of "Gangnam Style" on Tuesday; a world skin care contest on Wednesday; a song festival on Thursday; a rock festival with singer IU and popular punk band Crying Nut on July 28; a hip-hop rave party on July 29; and a special concert by comeback idol bands such as DJ DOC, Turbo, Jinusean and singer Kim Hyun-jung on July 30.

A ceremony to declare the launch of a world festival cities association is also scheduled at the Mud Beach Hotel on Saturday, with delegations from the United States, the Netherlands and Singapore to be on hand. (Yonhap)