There are two ways to get on The Block. One is to be a charming, slightly combustible pair with a tape measure, a dream and a spare three months. The other, apparently, starts at $49.
A new e-book called Behind the Block: The Ultimate Application Guide has gone on sale through The SI Collective, pitched squarely at anyone hoping to be cast for The Block 2027. It is an 18-page digital download (PDF), it costs $49, and its headline selling point is a foreword from Foreman Dan himself.
That works out to roughly $2.72 a page, which is steep for a PDF and an absolute bargain by Block standards, where $49 will not get you a single cabinet handle.
What is in The Block application guide?
We have not read the full guide, so this is a look at what is being sold, not a review. Going by the sales page and the guide’s own contents page, the 18 pages are split into eight sections:
- Before you apply: the time commitment, eligibility, money and mindset, plus a primer on the 2027 location
- The golden rules: ten of them, with advice from past contestants
- The application video: how to make one the producers remember
- The casting interview: hot topics, curveball questions and how to prepare without sounding rehearsed
- Persistence: why some teams needed several goes to get in
- Life on The Block: no days off, constant fatigue and relentless pressure (their words, and easily the most honest sales pitch in reality TV)
- Final advice from contestants: be yourself, stay flexible, try to enjoy it
- The checklist: a tick-off list pulling it all together, because nothing says “renovation show” like a checklist somebody will ignore by Tuesday
Eight sections, a foreword and a closing pep talk in 18 pages comes to about two pages a topic. The listing calls it a cheat sheet, and that is the right word: expect a quick, punchy read, not a manual.
Why Foreman Dan’s name matters
Dan Reilly is one of the few people who has seen casting from both sides of the hi-vis. He applied, got cast and finished second with now-wife Dani in 2012, came back for All Stars in 2013, and has been on the tools as a foreman since 2014 (starting out as “Foreboy”, a title nobody has ever fully recovered from). If anyone knows the gap between what a team says in an audition video and what they look like at 11pm on waterproofing day, it is him.
Worth noting what the listing does not say, though. It promises a foreword and tips from Dan, plus real contestant stories. It does not say how much of the guide is his, who wrote the rest, or which contestants are telling the stories.
Do you actually need it?
No guide can sell you a spot. Past seasons have drawn tens of thousands of entries (45,000 were reported for the 2019 series) for a handful of teams, and the people choosing are casting producers, not PDF authors.
The persistence chapter is on solid ground, mind you. Kyle and Leslie applied five times before landing on the 2023 season, and the show’s long-time casting director has said plenty of teams just needed a few more years before they were ready. Getting knocked back is practically a Block rite of passage, right up there with crying in a ute.
What a guide like this can realistically do is stop you making the avoidable mistakes: the mumbled video, the missing teammate, the application that reads like a job interview. Whether that is worth $49 depends on how confident you are that you would not film your audition in portrait mode in a dark garage.
The free version
Applications for The Block 2027 are open now. Nine is after teams of two who can commit to a 12-week shoot from February 2027, cannot work during filming, and do not both need renovation experience. Our guide on how to apply for The Block 2027 walks through the process and what producers look for, and it costs nothing, which leaves you $49 ahead before you have bought a single tile.
And if you want to know what you would be signing up for, next season is the heritage job at Jacksons Hill in Sunbury. Bring a level. And possibly a structural engineer.
