Hot Off the Press Release: The Block’s Back

This morning Three announced The Block NZ would bounce back for a new season on July 8.

It will air 7.00 Sundays and 7.30 Monday-Wednesday within days of another local crowdpleaser, Westside, resuming its run.

As a curtain raiser to the drama’s return, Three will screen an All-Star Family Feud special, which pits the casts of Outrageous Fortune and Westside against one another.

The contest isn’t just a gimmick as the next season of Westside has recruited some of the Outrageous Fortune cast to play the parents of their original characters.

The Family Feud special will air on July 2, ahead of the final of Lost & Found.

Here’s the press release detailing The Block’s return:

THREE ANNOUNCES THE TEAMS AND LOCATION FOR THE SEVENTH SEASON OF THE BLOCK NZ

Block-a-holics buckle up; New Zealand’s favourite DIY show is back!

This season the four teams are competing in the heart of Hobsonville Point where they take on the gruelling 12-week challenge that will see them each design and complete a state of the art contemporary three-storey family home.

This year’s contestants consist of The Block NZ’s oldest couple Amy (39) and Stu (46) parents from Gisborne, childhood mates Ben (24) and Tom (24) from Auckland, gym fanatics and soul mates Claire (26) and Agni (23) from Hamilton, and BFFs Chlo (25) and Em (25) from Palmerston North.

Joining the show for the first time is judge Kristina Rapley, Editor of Your Home & Garden. Kristina will be teaming up with controversial judge Jason Bonham. The new judging duo are set to make a formidable team as they examine and scrutinize every detail of the nail-biting weekly room reveals.

Hobsonville Point is Auckland’s hottest new suburb, a busy, thriving master-planned community which has been designed from scratch with residents well-being and sense of belonging at the forefront.

The teams will be put through their paces with new and daring challenges this year in addition to familiar past challenge favourites. Also unique to this season is The Block Collective, which means the teams will need to work together whilst also competing against each other to take out the competition.

The winners of The Block NZ 2018 will take home the grand prize of $100,000 and all teams will take home any profit they make above reserve from the sale of their home.

Mark Richardson returns as show host and Shelley Ferguson as challenge host.  The builds will be overseen by site foreman Peter Wolfkamp aka ‘Wolfy’ or ‘The Wolfman’.

Mark Richardson said, “The competition element of this show has never before been so fierce.  Last season proved that this competition comes with no guarantees. More than ever these teams are going to need to work hard, play by the rules and think strategically.”

Shelley Ferguson said, “This season is special because it really exemplifies the idea of community; the houses are located in the heart of a modern subdivision that is all about connecting with the people closest to you.  With similar facades, the pressure is really on for this year’s teams to up their design game in order to make their home unique and stand out from the others.”

Peter Wolfkamp said, “The team dynamics this year are fantastic –we have a really fun bunch who are fiercely competitive.  No two years are the same on The Block NZ and this year’s teams will undoubtedly entertain us like a soap opera as they battle it out to be number one in the DIY stakes.”