Netflix’s Skyscraper Live special featuring Alex Honnold‘s Taipei 101 climb has been postponed.
The event was supposed to air live on Friday night (January 23) at 8pm ET, which would have been 9am on Saturday morning in Taiwan.
Alex is planning on climbing the 11th tallest building in the world as a free-solo climb, which means he will have no ropes or safety net. Because of the danger involved, weather conditions need to be perfect for the climb to happen.
Keep reading to find out more…
The climb has been pushed by 24 hours and will air on Saturday night instead.
Netflix announced just 30 minutes before the event, “Due to weather, we are unable to proceed with today’s #SkyscraperLIVE event. It has been rescheduled for Saturday, January 24 at 8 PM ET | 5 PM PT. Safety remains our top priority, and we appreciate your understanding.”
In an interview with Variety ahead of the event, producer James Smith talked about contingency plans for weather. There was a 30% chance of rain in the morning and execs had plans to potentially delay the broadcast for an hour, if that would help.
“Our main contingency planning is we can delay the broadcast by maybe an hour, maybe slightly longer,” Smith said. “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.”
Netflix unscripted series VP Jeff Gaspin added, “We’ll be on site for a few days after if, for some reason he doesn’t go on that day. But after that, it’s probably a bigger reschedule. There’s only certain times of year you can actually climb the tower because it’s rainy season between April and September.”
See what Netflix said about the tragic possibility that Alex could fall during the climb.
Get the scoop on Alex‘s payday for the special.
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