The huge room of the Grand Palais at Lille bustled constantly with many different activities. In this room, players battled in epic tournaments throughout the day. Many familiar faces were seen around the game tables and the atmosphere was charged, but friendly at the same time, as the players battled it out in various tournaments.

At Lille, the winner of the DMF Milan, Erik Va Der Laan, was defeated before making it to the top eight. DMF Frankfurt champion, Pierre Malherbaud, was also pushed out of the limelight by his long-time nemesis, Laurent Pagorek, in the quarter-final.

As a French guy playing in his native country, Laurent made it to the finals at Lille but was eventually vanquished by the outstanding skills of the German player Jonas Skali, who already holds a national award.

Congratulations to Jonas who left these two intense tournament days as the absolute winner with the title of Champion of this Darkmoon Faire!

All participants were given the chance to try out the brand-new TCG expansion, “March of the Legion,” which was revealed at Lille for the first time prior to its commercial release on November 21st 2007.

Blizzard Entertainment was the official partner of this event and came with a bag full of surprises. The many onlookers and numerous enthusiastic fans indulged in free candy floss and pop corn while hanging around the different booths, looking at TCG Artist Clint Langley’s dedications, or the photography stand with its customizable digital backgrounds highlighted by an exceptionally skilled graphic artist and the help of an awesome make-up artist who made everyone’s day!

The World of Warcraft community was tightly packed around the computers, on which a demo of the game could be played. Everyone was either showing off his own character, or taking their first steps into the game thanks to some level 70 pre-made characters, fully equipped with high-level dungeon equipment.

But, once again, the many contests running all weekend long were the most popular activities. As soon as the subscriptions could be made, players dashed around the tables to take their chance in winning the prizes available: posters, stickers, badges, and, of course, the highly sought-after in-game baby murloc pets as the grand prizes!

The “human cannon ball” contest was a lot of fun as well. Players had to aim to hit a target floating in the middle of a pond near Shattrath after their characters had been blasted into the air from out of the Darkmoon Faire cannon. This gave the first participants a taste of what was to come...

Next, a huge flood of visitors rushed in for the first contest of level 1 characters. After a merciless struggle for the victory, Benjamin eventually stood out and won the marathon to Orgrimmar, leaving his competitors to choke on his dust.

Another marathon to Thunder Bluff was organized for the day after and was also tremendously successful. A young player who was particularly skilled made his Tauren run to the finish line as if he had been doing it all his life. Congratulations to both of our winners!

The Gurubashi Arena contests also delighted everyone who participated. Introducing level 1 rogue characters (Night Elves were not allowed to participate due to their in-born advantage), the action was all over the place and held people breathless, with thrilling fights as well as few surprises, such as a junior player succeeding in qualifying for the final rounds, proving that valor does not always come after years of experience! This contest was such a success that we had to run it again the day after so the many competitors could all have their part of the fun.

A Tonks death match was also held in order to calm the atmosphere down a little after these exciting battles, as well as to offer the players another kind of challenge. Dexterity, determination, and strategy were the watch-words during this challenge. After the competition, the players all bowed to each other happily.

Aside from these in-game events, players were able to confront the Blizzard team in merciless TCG gunslinging battles. The happy few who actually managed to counter the cunning skills of the Blizzard team were rewarded with exclusive boosters from “March of the Legion!

Others preferred to stay in-game to participate in an epic raid in the brand new dungeon, Zul’Aman. The crowds of spectators around the players had the chance to see some of the content from World of Warcraft’s latest patch.

At the conclusion of each of these two days of frantic festivities, everyone participated in a lottery from which the winners left with many different gifts, such as an exclusive Burning Crusade mouse pad of which only two have been released world-wide, and a beautiful World of Warcraft Collector’s Edition box!

We really want to thank the thousands of players, non-players, guilds, and various fans who attended this two-day event. You really made this Darkmoon Faire a total blast with your smiles, kind words, and warm support: thanks to all of you!