“How long can we shut down and still deliver the show to Nine?”

When The Block shut down during filming earlier this year, as part of Victoria’s first wave of the pandemic, producers were faced with a huge dilemma.

As executive producer Julian Cress explains, “We got into some pretty heavy meetings between myself, (executive producers) David Barbour and Justin Sturzaker where we had to try and work out: ‘How long can we remain shut down and still deliver the show to Nine and get it on air this year?’

“We realised at that point that while we just been through something unprecedented and incredibly dramatic we also have on our hands, probably one of the best shows we’ve ever made because of it.”

It would be 6 weeks before contestants would step back onto the Brighton site, while construction continued under Victoria’s Stage 3 conditions.

“We were able to continue building the extensions to the homes and ceilings. We put all the we put all the windows in, and the doors. That helped enormously because we were then able to start planning to come back into production and do it in a way that would be safe.

“We just continued with the structural elements, and then they came back into an ’empty box’, to put a kitchen in it, put a bathroom, a living dining in it,” he explains.

“But because we had had those six weeks of continual building while they were away, we were able to deal with the challenge of COVID and create an environment which was acceptable to Work Safe, and acceptable to us. It was within the guidelines for physical distancing requirements that were legislated by the government.”

Contestants across 5 states were safely home with families, and sent weekly videos from lockdown.

“The trick was being in touch with them every day while we were in lockdown, continuing to inform them of what was happening, continuing to go through the data on COVID. As things started to turn and the curve started to flatten, I was able to say,’If you guys are willing, we think we could restart under these conditions and work to these guidelines.’ And thankfully, all five teams said, ‘Let’s do it!'”

Filming then resumed when Victorian conditions eased.

Rather than flying in weekly from Sydney, this time, Scott Cam stayed in Melbourne for the duration of final renovations which, miraculously, were conducted before Victoria went back to Stage 3. By the time Stage 4 was imposed, renovations had been completed.

Cress and his team remain extremely grateful to cast and crew for their patience, and enabling them to get the show in the can in a most challenging year.

“We’ve been so lucky to get through to this point because we’ve been working with essential personnel only on the site. Every single one of the people on this site knows how imperative it is that we don’t have a single case of COVID. None of them have been doing anything of an evening where they would be likely to come into contact with anybody who has it,” he added.

How the 2020 auction will play out remains unclear, but there will be no Open for Inspection to public this year.

The houses have been listed with prices between $3.2 million and $3.4 million and expected to sell around late October, early November.