AN ILLUSIONIST vanished from a street stage and reappeared at a nearby building's rooftop on the 50th floor - all in five seconds.

With Raffles Place as his stage, local illusionist J C Sum performed this stunt before a crowd of more than 9,000 people who turned up for The Straits Times' 162nd anniversary celebrations.

His show, the first mega illusion in South-east Asia, left the spectators awe-struck and they showed their appreciation by applauding him.

The crowd watched his reappearance at the rooftop of OUB Centre on huge screens located around Raffles Place.

Mr Sum said: 'There was no way we could rehearse this illusion in similar conditions.

'We had to make it in one try and my team and I are ecstatic that we pulled it off.'

The success was especially sweet because part of the platform had collapsed at 10am yesterday due to bad weather.

He explained: 'We had to fix parts of the illusion apparatus. I guess that's Murphy's Law.'

For many like Mr Patrick Lieu who had come hoping to win the grand prize of a brand new Volkswagen Jetta in ST's 'A Part Of My Life' contest, witnessing the mega illusion was a 'consolation prize'.

Mr Lieu said: 'I've never seen anything like that in my life. It was wonderful.'

The winner of the car was 18-year-old Dominic Cheng. He needs to do one thing before he can enjoy his new car fully - get a driving licence. He now has a huge incentive to do it soon.

The student at the Institute of Technical Education (Balestier) was the big winner of the lucky draw which attracted 12,000 entries.

ST readers had spent the last week cutting out letters found in advertisements in various sections of the paper to complete an entry form. This formed the password which they needed to enter in ST's interactive portal Stomp or SMS 79777 to uncover the secret location of the car.

Five $500 and $200 cash prizes were also given out to readers.

ST editor Han Fook Kwang said: 'Our readers are the most important part of the newspaper.

'We have received tremendous support from them throughout the last 162 years and this is a small token of our appreciation.'

Mr Sum's performance and the draw are part of ST's 162nd anniversary celebrations and a way of thanking readers for their support.

For the contest, Mr Suhaimi Sari, 45, bought 13 copies of The Straits Times every day for the past week.

The number 13 might be deemed unlucky by most but not for Mr Sari whose 13-year-old daughter's birthday is June 13.

But it was not to be as Dominic pipped all contestants to the Jetta worth $62,900 without certificate of entitlement.

It was only the fourth time he had ever taken part in a lucky draw.

He said: 'I'll get a driving licence as soon as I can.'