On Thursday 10th March hundreds of darts players will be heading to the Island for the 31st PokerStars IOM International Darts Festival and as the title suggests, 2016 really does promise to have the most cosmopolitan mix of competitors in its history.

Canada will be represented by Lakeside World Championship runner up Jeff Smith, Corrine Hammond currently eighth in the ladies rankings is jetting in from Australia, and they will be joined by players from Brazil, Lithuania, Holland, Germany, Belgium as well as the best players from all over Great Britain and of course the Isle of Man.

Current world champions Scott Waites and Golden Girl Trina Gulliver will be here, as will perennial crowd favourites like Darryl Fittton, Tony O' Shea, Glen Durrant and Deta Hedman who are joined by a plethora of previous World Champions, including Ted 'The Count' Hankey, Martin 'Wolfie' Adams, Andy 'The Viking' Fordham the ever popular Scotty Mitchell and Lancashire’s own red rose Lisa Ashton.

The Festival begins on Thursday night with the respective Okells and IOM Event Services Men's and Ladies Classic events.

The Darts Corner Mixed Doubles will be held on Friday evening along with the under 18s Youth Tournament. The Youth event has ?500 in prize money, is free to enter with the added bonus of the final not only being played on the stage on the finals’ day, it will also be streamed live. What a great opportunity and experience for young darters and one hopefully they will all get behind.

The Isle of Man Darts Organisation is running their own ?1000 event at the Villa, which we urge everyone to turn up and support. This event starts at 1.30 pm Friday afternoon and everyone can enter up until 12.45 pm on the day.

The main event, the PokerStars Men’s and Ladies Open both kick off at 10.30 am on the Saturday. This is followed by the No Hopers and Cabbages event, a new singles tournament introduced for this year to try and ensure as many players as possible pick up prizes. Players can only enter this event if they haven't picked up any prizes in the two main singles events.

10.00 am on Sunday sees the start of the Darts Corner Men’s and Ladies Doubles.

To enter all the official Festival events visit www.englanddarts.co.uk and follow the links. Players can enter the Doubles and Cabbages at the venue, and Classic events up to 6.00 pm on the Thursday 10th March. Anyone wishing to play in the PokerStars main events must enter online before midnight on the 6th March.

Looking at the quality of players this year, all events will certainly take some winning, but as Festival Promoter Howard Miller pointed out "One of the beauties of any Festival like this is that the top players don't enjoy the shorter format as it generally levels the playing field.” The IOM Steam Packet Company has again put up cash prizes for the Manx player who goes the furthest.

Howard added “Whilst winning is important, and for the top players chasing ranking points vital, the festival is about so much more - It's about having fun, enjoying yourself and experiencing the atmosphere. This atmosphere will be enriched this year on the Sunday afternoon, when all the finals are live-streamed for the first time ever. It's here where we hope everyone has a great time, where they can get involved, clap, stomp their feet, cheer and if so inclined scream, it's darts, you can do that!”

Everyone is welcome and there is no admission charge. The finalists will take to the Royal Hall stage to their own walk-on music to be met by MC 'Little' Richard Ashdown, fresh from his TV duties at the World Championships at Lakeside. We are inviting anyone to attend the finals in the most absurd fancy dress outfit they can lay their hands on. As a little incentive IOM Event Services has put up a cash prize for the best outfit!