'Free Solo' Climber Set to Scale One of World's Tallest Skyscrapers Live. Here's How to Watch
The world will be watching with suspense as Alex Honnold embarks on his latest, death-defying stunt.
When and How to Watch Skyscraper Live
The Free Solo climber will star in Skyscraper Live, a two-hour Netflix special slated for 8 p.m. ET on Friday night and 9 a.m. on Saturday in Taipei.
For this suspenseful endeavor, Honnold will attempt to climb Taiwan's Taipei 101 skyscraper. The renowned rock climber will attempt the climb without any ropes or safety equipment.
And, yes, it'll be live on Netflix. It's such a daunting task that one outlet went with the headline, "A man might die live on TV. Will you be watching?"
Taipei's 101 Skyscraper
Honnold's mission is an uphill battle, literally.
Taipei 101 is the 11th-tallest building in the world. It stands at a whopping 1,667 feet, and it's a 101-story skyscraper. He went on a practice climb back in September.
According to Tudum, Taipei 101 is a unique challenge in that the building has "bamboo boxers," whose overhangs will complicate the climb.
"Each one is eight floors," Honnold told Tudum. "There's a balcony every eight floors, so in a lot of ways it feels like a climbing pitch, which is the way most climbers differentiate [the] segments of a climb. This means hard effort for almost 100 feet, then there’s a balcony. Hard effort for almost 100 feet, then [another] balcony. In a lot of ways, that’s what rock climbing feels like. Climb for a certain rope length, then stop."
Taipei was chosen due to its dry season, though a light show can still occur, according to Variety.
"Our main contingency planning is we can delay the broadcast by maybe an hour, maybe slightly longer," James Smith, the head of adventure at Plimsoll Prods. Ltd., tells Variety. "If there's been a light shower and the building’s drying off, the temperature here is pretty good, there's often a light breeze, so the building will dry relatively quickly. If it is deemed too wet, if there’s too much moisture on the building, we will probably delay to the next day, which would be a Saturday night transmission in the U.S. We could even delay another day if we needed to. Obviously Alex has to be 100% comfortable and happy in himself and in the conditions. And then our safety team likewise have to."
Hannold, of course, shot to fame after documenting his Free Solo climb of Yosemite National Park's El Capitan.
The 2018 National Geographic documentary went on to win an Oscar for Best Documentary Feature.
Strangely, Hannold says this skyscraper climb is less intimidating than rock climbing.
"One of the big differences between climbing a building and rock climbing is that there really isn't a hardest single move," he tells Tudum. "In some ways, it's less intimidating than the big free solos [on rocks] that I've done. The challenge comes from the overall physicality of it. The fatigue that [sets in] over the course of the building is slightly harder to anticipate. I don’t know how it’s gonna feel."