At a Glance
- Alex Honnold will free-solo the 101-story Taipei 101 in a live Netflix special on Jan. 23.
- Producers have built a two-tick safety system and a 10-second delay to protect the climber.
- The climb will take place without ropes, harnesses, or any other aids.
Why it matters: The event combines extreme sport with live-streaming technology, raising questions about safety and the limits of human performance.
Alex Honnold, a 40-year-old dad of two, will ascend the Taipei 101 skyscraper live on Netflix on Friday, without ropes or harnesses. The 101-story tower juts nearly a third of a mile into the air, and Honnold’s free-solo climb will be broadcast to millions of viewers.
The climb is part of Netflix’s Skyscraper Live series. It is the first time a climber has attempted a free-solo of a structure of this height in a live-streamed event. The production team has planned extensively, using standard live-TV safety protocols and a 10-second delay to cut away if necessary.
> “Every scenario has been mapped out, as you might expect,” said Grant Mansfield of Plimsoll Productions. “The main focus has been on keeping Alex safe.”
Mansfield explained the two-tick system that governs the climb. The first tick is Honnold’s own comfort level. “He has to feel good about it,” he said. “If you’re not feeling it, despite the fact it’s a live broadcast, you are under no pressure to do this climb.”
The second tick is the team’s ability to stop the climb if something goes wrong. “If we get in a situation where he’s saying, ‘Yeah, I’m going for it,’ but there are things that are bothering us, we have the right to say ‘no,'” Mansfield added. “He won’t be on that building unless we’re all comfortable.”
Netflix executive Jeff Gaspin told Variety that the company has a simple plan for any emergency. “We have a 10-second delay. Nobody expects or wants to see anything like that to happen. But we will cut away, and it’s as simple as that,” Gaspin said.
Honnold himself has spoken about the emotional stakes. “I’m sure I’ll feel a little nervous at the bottom, just because it’s something totally new and I don’t know how it’s going to feel,” he told Netflix’s Tudum. “I’ve spent 30 years climbing rock faces; this is going to be my first big handmade structure, so I’m sure it’ll feel a little different.”
He also emphasized the seriousness of the climb. “My life is on the line – I don’t really care who’s watching. I care about doing what I’m doing and doing it well,” Honnold said.
The Taipei 101 building has a distinctive middle section that Honnold described as a series of stacked “bamboo boxes.” Each box is eight floors high, with a balcony every eight floors. “They overhang, I don’t know, 10 or 15 degrees – it’s kind of steep – and then there’s a balcony every eight floors,” he explained. “This means you do a hard effort for almost 100 feet and then there’s a balcony, and then you do another hard effort for 100 feet and there’s a balcony.”
“The boxes are definitely the most physically demanding part,” Honnold added.
He also noted that the building’s geometry offers some safety advantages. “There are balconies every few floors. The geometry of the building, the shape of the building is such that you actually could fall in tons of places and not actually die, which makes it in some ways safer than a lot of rock-climbing objectives,” he said.
Despite the risks, Honnold remains confident. “I’m very confident that I can climb the building, which is why I’m doing this, but I want to have a good time, I want to smile and enjoy myself, I want to have a good experience,” he told Tudum.
He also shared what he plans to do after the climb. “I’ll take the elevator down, I’ll see my wife Sanni McCandless, we’ll be psyched. We’ll eat at the buffet that night – it’s a really nice buffet – it’ll be great, and that will be the day,” Honnold said.
The Skyscraper Live special airs on Friday, Jan. 23, at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT on Netflix. Viewers will be able to watch Honnold’s daring ascent in real time, with the safety measures and delay in place to protect the climber.
