Over the years the Love Island challenge stage has produced some truly iconic moments. From Olivia Attwood finding out Stormzy was calling her out on Twitter, to Paige thinking Finn’s head was turned in the headline challenge, to that moment where Ovie dressed up as a builder and bulldozed through a wall (yeah we’re still thinking about it 😍). But as you may have noticed this year Islanders are yet to head to the challenge stage, so are there no challenges this year?
Across various series we’ve seen the Islanders dress in ridiculous costumes and do that dramatic slow mo run towards the stage. While sometimes the concepts seemed a little bizarre and pointless (carrying food in each other’s mouths? ew no thanks), in the early episodes of the seasons the challenges were essential in people confessing feelings and causing some strong reactions, and towards the ends when they were all loved up and happy, it gave us some much needed entertainment. And as a viewer it was always refreshing to see the Islanders in a new setting, but will we see them on the stage this year? Here’s what we know about this year’s challenges.
Are there going to be challenges on this year’s Love Island?
In short, yes there are still going to be challenges and games on this year’s Love Island. We’ve already seen one with the balloon popping game on Sunday night’s episode (9th June) and we can’t foresee a season that doesn’t include the iconic heart rate challenge. However, it’s looking like the actual challenge stage where the Islanders dress up in themed costumes and do challenges isn’t happening.
In fact, ITV has been scaling back the challenges for the last few years. The first to go was the iconic Twitter challenge in 2019, which saw the Islanders read out tweets from members of the public, which had certain words or named blanked out and the Islanders had to guess what the gap was.
Executive producer Mike Spence, said of the cancellation: “The public do love that Twitter challenge and they love the drama. But personally I think Twitter can be a negative space and I think it’s probably best to not do it. Is it gone for good? It’s gone for now, yeah. But never say never.”
Shortly after winter Love Island in 2020, the headline challenge also stopped.
In 2022 the channel revealed they would stop doing challenges that involved food, in an attempt to reduce wastage and ahead of the 2023 summer season it was also confirmed the spitting challenges, where contestants would transfer liquids in their mouths, would also not return.
Given all these previous challenges had been scrapped, it then made a lot of sense when before the 2024 Love Island All Stars kicked off in January, Mike Spence announced they wouldn’t be bringing back the challenge stage.
“We’re not going to do the Challenge Stage. The challenges in the villa will continue and we’ve got some really fun new stuff with that, but we’re not doing them on the stage. That will be rested for this series,” he explained to The Sun.
While it’s not been officially confirmed, it would appear this tradition of not bringing back the challenge stage has remained for the new season. Thankfully it still appears there will be lots of games and challenges to keep our Islanders entertained in the villa.
Guess, we’ll just have to rewatch Ovie’s ‘Men At Work’ challenge again. It’s here btw, if you fancy a trip down memory lane.
Love Island continues tonight at 9pm on ITV2 and ITVX
Senior Entertainment and Lifestyle Writer
Lydia Venn is Cosmopolitan UK’s Senior Entertainment and Lifestyle Writer. She covers everything from , to the latest celebrity news. She also writes across our work/life section regularly creating , covering exciting new releases and sharing the latest must-haves. In her role she’s interviewed everyone from Margot Robbie to Niall Horan, and her work has appeared on an episode of . After completing a degree in English at the University of Exeter, Lydia moved into journalism, writing for the , before working as Features Editor at , where she spoke on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour and Talk Radio. She has an encyclopedic knowledge of Gilmore Girls and 00s teen movies, and in her free time can be found with a margarita in hand watching the Real Housewives on repeat. Find her on .