Honnold climbs The Sphere

Alex Honnold was seen climbing Sphere in Las Vegas on April 16, and Barstool Sports identified the climber in a post published early April 17. (barstoolsports.com) The Barstool post said people in Las Vegas first saw a man “casually ascending” the venue on Thursday, then named Honnold as the climber. A separate eyewitness video on YouTube showed a climber partway up the exterior with a helicopter nearby. (barstoolsports.com) (youtube.com) Sphere Entertainment had already announced Honnold as one of five athletes in “From The Edge,” an immersive Sphere Studios production set to debut in 2026. The company said filming was underway in Las Vegas, along with Jordan, Dubai, Switzerland, the Bahamas, Austin and Maui. (sphereentertainmentco.com) That makes the Las Vegas climb look less like a random stunt and more like part of a production tied to Sphere’s own content slate. “From The Edge” is directed by E. Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, the filmmakers behind “Free Solo.” (sphereentertainmentco.com) (films.nationalgeographic.com) Honnold is the climber whose 2017 rope-free ascent of El Capitan became the center of “Free Solo,” the 2018 documentary that won the Academy Award for feature documentary. His official bio still describes him as the only person to free solo Yosemite’s 3,000-foot El Capitan. (films.nationalgeographic.com) (alexhonnold.com) Sphere is not an ordinary facade. The Las Vegas venue opened in September 2023 as a purpose-built immersive arena, and local police documents from a 2024 trespassing case said parts of the exterior are “so delicate” that the building was designed to be maintained from the inside. (visitlasvegas.com) (8newsnow.com) That earlier case ended with criminal charges after activist Maison Des Champs climbed the exterior on February 7, 2024, and police said the incident caused an estimated $100,000 in damage. In that report, a Sphere engineer told officers no one from staff should have been on the outside because it was outside safety protocols. (8newsnow.com) Honnold also has a direct Las Vegas connection beyond this clip. The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported in October 2025 that he lives in Las Vegas and was preparing a five-episode Nevada travel series called “Get a Little Out There With Alex Honnold.” (reviewjournal.com) If the climb was filmed for “From The Edge,” Sphere’s exterior just became part of Sphere’s own programming pipeline as well as its skyline image. Either way, the man on the outside of the 2023 venue was not an unknown trespasser this time, but one of the most recognizable climbers in the world. (sphereentertainmentco.com) (alexhonnold.com)