Most recent season or competition: 2023 New Zealand Sevens | |
Sport | Rugby sevens |
---|---|
Founded | 2000 |
No. of teams | 16 |
Country | New Zealand |
Most recent champion(s) | Argentina (2023) |
Most titles | New Zealand (10 titles) |
Official website | sevens.co.nz |
The New Zealand Sevens was an annual rugby sevens tournament held at Waikato Stadium in Hamilton, New Zealand. [1] [2] For the first eighteen years of its history the event was held in Wellington. [1] [3] The event was the third on the World Rugby Sevens Series circuit and is generally held in late January or early February.
Wellington first hosted a tournament in 2000 as part of the inaugural Sevens World Series. The event was the first to be held in the newly-developed Westpac Stadium. [4] The tournament built a reputation for a party atmosphere, with a large proportion of attendees choosing to wear fancy dress. [5] Movie figures such as the Men in Black (MIB) and Austin Powers were crowd favorites and an impersonator of Austin Powers was a regular for many years performing for the crowd. [4] Host team New Zealand dominated the sevens competition in Wellington, winning just over half of all the tournaments held.
The location of the tournament was moved to Hamilton in 2018, [3] after attendances in Wellington had declined. [6] The tournament was hosted as part of an integrated men's and women's event from 2019. [7] Discussion was also begun on alternating the host location of the tournament between Hamilton and Suva, in Fiji, following the 2020 edition. [8] [9]