Alex Honnold is a professional climber known for his "free soloing" of tall structures. This means that he climbs as any regular climber would, but that he uses no ropes, harnesses, or safety nets. This Friday, Alex was scheduled to take part in the Netflix event, Skyscraper Live, a live broadcast in which he would climb Taipei 101, an actual skyscraper in Taiwan.
Netflix's ‘Skyscraper’ Live Event Postponed to Tonight Due to High Winds in Taiwan
Netflix's 'Skyscraper' live event has been moved to tonight due to the unruly weather in Taiwan yesterday.
Honnold is no stranger to profiting off of this unique skill, as he previously starred in Netflix's Free Solo. However, as many critics have pointed out, there's a key difference between the documentary and the live broadcast. If Alex falls, viewers will be watching in real time, and Netflix will profit from Honnold's potential death. By the time viewers watched the 2018 documentary, they already knew that Honnold had survived.
However, that fact is not stopping Honnold, who considers this opportunity a "lifelong dream," according to CNN. He's also never climbed something of this structure before, so that fact alone is intriguing to him.
"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 the news outlet. "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."
Yes, being on a livestream while the world watches you climb in real time will definitely be a little different.
Why TaiPei 101?
So, out of all the skyscrapers out there? Why Taipei 101? Why not the Empire State or the Burj Khalifa?
Well, firstly, according to Britannica, the structure held the title of the tallest building in the world from 2004 to 2010. It's also set up to be the perfect climbing environment for a free soloer. While speaking with CNN, Honnold explained that climbing the skyscraper should be no different from any of his rock climbs, especially since there are rest stops in between.
He even added, "You could actually fall in tons of places and not actually die, which makes it safer than a lot of rock climbing objectives." Aside from the building's unique layout, Alex also has 30 years of climbing experience under his belt. In his mind, he believes he will walk away injury-free.
The live broadcast will be available to watch tonight on Netflix at 8 pm Eastern Time.
