At the beginning of 2000, the band entered the studios to record the third album.
They momentary stopped the recording to take part of the Finnish qualifications for Eurovision contest with the song ‘Sleepwalker’. They were not chosen by the jury despite a great audience support (which put them number 1; the jury placed them number 3).

Wishmaster appeared as an intermediate album, easy to make but it did not prevent Tuomas from considering ‘Dead Boy’s Poem’ as a very personal song and probably the best he had ever composed. His perfectionism can be noticed by the choice for the child who reads the poem – Sam Hardwick whose mother tongue is English. Wishmaster eventually came out in May 2000.

For the release of the album, the band organized a special show in Kitee where they were given their four first Gold Records (for Oceanborn and singles Sacrament of Wilderness, Sleeping Sun and Walking in the Air). Designated as “album of the month” by many magazines in June 2000 and despite the much expected releases of Bon Jovi and Iron Maiden, Wishmaster entered the German charts at number 21 and number 66 in France. In Finland, the album reached number 1 and remained there for three weeks…

The Wishmaster World Tour, which started in Kitee, began with Finnish big festivals and carried on in July 2000 in South America where the welcome was incredible: when the band arrived there, the album had just been released. Nightwish best memories come from this three weeks tour. They played in Chili, Argentina, Brazil, Panama, Mexico and made a promo visit in Bolivia. Then came successful concerts in German Wacken Open Air, Belgium Biebop and a European headline tour – central Europe and then Italy, Switzerland and Holland where Tarja passed out twice because of the smoke coming from the drug used by the audience – with Sinergy and Eternal Tears Of Sorrow in October. Tuomas looked up to Alexi Laiho, Roope Latvali and Marco Hietala’s talent. Therefore, when Sinergy supported Nightwish for that tour, Tuomas was very worried. Besides, at that early time, Marco joined Tarja on stage to sing Beauty and The Beast with her.
During November, Nightwish also played twice in Montréal, Canada. Besides, the band made a live DVD and VHS out of a concert in Tampere on December 29th 2000 which came out in April 2001 in Finland, and during the summer in the rest of the world.

At the end of the show, Nightwish received platinum discs for Wishmaster and gold discs for Deep Silent Complete single. A live album from this show was also released at that time but only in Finland and it was limited to 10000 copies.