The LAN is organised into three eSport and secondary tournaments respectively. The secondary tournaments include a 32-man Pro Evolution Soccer (PES) competition along with Counter Strike 1.6 and Quake III. The eSport tournaments are all team based first-person shooters: Day of Defeat: Source, Counter Strike Source and Call of Duty 4.

Teams and players already registered for the event include 20-year-old Dutch Quake player Ivo 'forever' Lindhout, French Counter Strike Source teams emuLate! and the-eXperience 2008 champions Epsilon eSports. The Call of Duty 4 tournament has already filled to capacity with local teams and now a waiting list is in operation. Packard Bell iPOWER 2008 (an event held at the Electronic Sports World Cup Masters) champions, H2k.Thermaltake, have already registered for the event as have their main rivals oXmoze.

The event is held over the weekend of November 1st-2nd at Palais des Congrès d’Epinal, 70 kilometres from Nancy in the North of France. Schnelzaeur Joan , one of the event organisers, said it was the “ best place around for local organisers”. Despite the fact the event is a bring-your-own-computer, the organisers have ambitious plans. Numerous slots in the professional tournaments have been reserved for European teams, including four in the DOD:S competition, six in CSS and eight in CoD4.

The interest in CoD4 is due to the €4000 prize purse which is likely to receive another increase of €500 shortly. Speaking openly, Joan hoped that the event would catch international interest but conceded he'd be happy if three or four foreign teams came, though he stressed that “we're in discussion with our sponsor and we will try our best to increase the cash”.

The event is the only LAN outside the ESWC which gives out a significant amount of money and will become even more important to the local scene as the ESWC moves its global finals to San Jose, USA. Joan agreed and admitted that “75% of the events in France are small” and that they “preferred to award hardware prizes instead of cash”, something the organisation, which has held events since 2000, has outgrown.

You can read more about the event and register here.