The world's top snowboarders will once again return to the giant superpipe and slopestyle courses at Snow Park NZ in Lake Wanaka for five days of world-class snowboarding action during the Burton New Zealand Open Snowboarding Championships from July 29 to August 2.

The Burton NZ Open is the pinnacle of snowboarding competition in the Southern Hemisphere and attracts the world's top professional riders including X Games champions, Olympic gold medalists and world champions, all competing for the largest title payout in snowboarding. The male and female cumulative-points champions will each collect US$100,000 after competing in the New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Europe, Japan and USA events, and New Zealand is the first port of call on the international circuit.

Competition gets underway on Wednesday July 30 with the men's and women's halfpipe qualifiers. On Thursday July 31 the action moves to Snow Park NZ's newly designed slopestyle course for the qualifiers followed by the Slopestyle Semi-finals and Finals on Friday August 1.

Friday night will see awe-inspiring massive air in the invitational quarterpipe under floodlights with live music from top New Zealand DJ's. Spectators can watch all the action for free from a specially created grandstand carved out of snow. All eyes will be on the Superpipe Semi-finals and Finals on Saturday August 2 when the world's best will fight it out for the Open title and a share of the NZ$50,000 prize purse.

The action is just as exciting off-snow with the Gravis Open Sessions featuring some of the biggest names in Kiwi music every night of the Burton NZ Open, from the launch party on July 29 to the wrap celebrations on August 2. For further information visit www.opensnowboarding.com

About the Burton Global Open Series

The Burton Global Open Series events are the pinnacle snowboarding events of the season. Founded by Jake Burton, the Opens have grown from grassroots events to global spectacles attracting tens of thousands of spectators and riders from around the world. Since the beginning, the Opens have been driven by riders, for riders evolving with snowboarding and riders' needs over the years. With events held in Canada, Europe, Japan, the United States, New Zealand and Australia, the Opens set the standard for snowboarding events around the globe.