Live, high-profile stunts have a habit of looking deceptively simple on screen. A person climbs. Cameras follow. The world watches.
What you do not see is the decision architecture, the invisible labour, and the real-time judgement required to keep a live broadcast moving while managing consequences that are both severe and publicly visible.
In Skyscraper Live, Secret Compass was brought in to advise Plimsoll Productions and key stakeholders including Netflix and ITV, and to lead on-location risk management for a live skyscraper climb.
This is what that actually involved.
WHAT MADE THIS FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT
Skyscraper Live sat at the intersection of three compounding forces.
First, it was live. A short broadcast delay does not remove risk. It compresses decision timelines. There are no retakes, no pausing the clock, no “we’ll reset and go again”.
Second, consequence was inherently visible. If something went wrong, it would not just be an incident. It would be a global live event.
Third, decision-making had to satisfy multiple stakeholders simultaneously. Live windows, audience timing, operational constraints, and risk thresholds all had to align at the same moment. When they did not, the safest decision was often the most disruptive one.
“Live television compresses decision-making. There are no retakes, no resets and no pause button.”
Lachlan Bucknall
Lead Safety Advisor, Skyscraper Live
THE INVISIBLE WORK BEHIND THE BROADCAST
A common misconception is that safety on productions like this is only about the headline performer.
Alex’s brilliance as a climber was a huge risk mitigation in this production, but in reality the headline performance is one risk domain inside a much bigger system.
On the ground and across the building, safety leadership covered:
- Specialist rigging and camera haul systems to position camera operators and equipment reliably relative to the structure
- Multiple fixed and mobile camera positions at height, with safe access, supervision, and controlled transitions
- Dropped-object risk, where a single mistake can become catastrophic
- Exclusion zones designed around what was physically possible in a working city, not what would be ideal on paper
- Crowd and stage safety running in parallel to the climb and broadcast
- Communications and technical infrastructure constraints, including coverage limitations across a complex building environment
- Medical provision and rescue readiness designed for multiple plausible outcomes, without relying on a single best-case scenario
The critical point is that the safety workload was not a single plan. It was a continuous operation.
DECISION ARCHITECTURE: WHO COULD STOP THE SHOW
High-risk productions fail when authority is vague.
Here, decision authority was multi-layered and explicit:
- The performer could decide not to proceed
- Production leadership could call a stop
- The broadcaster could withdraw approval if risk thresholds were exceeded.
- The safety team could choose not to operate specific systems if conditions moved outside agreed parameters.
That clarity matters because it creates a shared reality: “safe enough to proceed” is not a feeling. It is a decision, owned by named people, at defined points in time.
MANAGING UNCERTAINTY WITHOUT PRETENDING IT DOES NOT EXIST
The most demanding work on productions like this is not writing down what is known. It is deciding what can be accepted as unknown.
Key uncertainties included:
- Weather behaviour and timing, including whether the building would be sufficiently dry at the required broadcast window
- Wind impacts on operations and systems
- Communications reliability across the structure
The approach was not to eliminate uncertainty, but to manage it through:
- pre-agreed decision points
- a go / delay / no-go framework
- contingency planning that assumed conditions would shift, not hold steady
- experienced teams able to adapt without losing discipline
This is what professional judgement looks like in practice: making a call with incomplete information, without lowering standards.
“You can’t eliminate uncertainty on a live project. You decide what you can live with, and what you can’t.”
Lachlan Bucknall
Lead Safety Advisor, Skyscraper Live
RISK VS AMBITION: WHERE THE REAL TENSION SHOWED UP
The most instructive clash in Skyscraper Live was not the climb itself. It was rehearsal time.
City permissions created narrow windows for safer rehearsal conditions, including larger exclusion zones. The production ambition to rehearse more ran into a hard operational reality: rehearsing outside those windows increased dropped-object exposure and time pressure.
The resolution was instructive: some elements were not rehearsed as many times as desired, rather than accepting elevated risk to satisfy a preference for additional practice.
This is what “ALARP” looks like in production terms. Not a slogan, but a trade-off made under constraint.
SAFETY AS A CREATIVE ENABLER
When producers talk about safety “getting in the way,” they are usually describing poor integration.
In Skyscraper Live, safety work enabled the broadcast in four ways:
- It created stakeholder confidence that the concept was controllable
- It enabled the camera plan through specialist rigging and managed access
- It protected the performer’s operating environment, including reducing unnecessary interference and distraction
- It kept editorial moving in real time because the safety system was designed to operate live, not just exist in documents
The pattern is clear: safety does not enable ambition by saying yes to everything. It enables ambition by making “yes” credible when it matters.
“The role is about advising clearly, then helping people make the right call at the right time.”
Lachlan Bucknall
Lead Safety Advisor, Skyscraper Live
LESSONS FROM A LIVE, HIGH-RISK BROADCAST
- Build safety and editorial alignment early
If safety is consulted late, the project becomes a negotiation. If safety is embedded early, it becomes a design process. - Treat “decision points” as production infrastructure
Go/no-go calls must be timed, owned, and resourced like any other critical production mechanism. - Plan for live operations, not just planned operations
Live creates dynamic risk. Your safety system must operate in real time, not just describe what should happen. - Invest in competence, not just coverage
The calmness of this project under pressure came from the capability of the on-location team. In high-risk environments, competence is the control measure. - Respect constraints and design within them
Exclusion zones, road closures, rehearsal windows, and public access are not inconveniences. They are the environment. Managing risk means designing around what is practicable, then tightening controls elsewhere.
WHAT THIS KIND OF WORK REQUIRES
Productions that look effortless on screen rely on systems that make effort invisible.
Skyscraper Live is a reminder that the real skill in high-risk, live television is not dampening creative ambition. It is making that ambition operationally possible under the harshest constraints: time, uncertainty, visibility and consequence.