Apple opens Apple Music Hall, a 600-capacity live music venue inside Battersea Power Station

Key Takeaways

• Apple has opened Apple Music Hall inside London’s Battersea Power Station, bringing live performances and music production together under one roof.

• The venue holds 600 fans, with a flexible stage and 48 speakers surrounding the audience.

• Recording studios and camera infrastructure mean a single show can become a Spatial Audio recording, a filmed performance and a global livestream.

• Fans can find information about upcoming shows and tickets at applemusichall.com.

Apple Music is giving fans a reason to take their headphones off, opening a live music venue inside Battersea Power Station where 600 people can watch a performance that could reach considerably more once it leaves the room.

Called Apple Music Hall, the space brings together an intimate concert venue, recording studios and broadcast facilities, allowing artists to perform for the audience in front of them while capturing the show for fans around the world. For a brand that already plays such a big part in how people listen to music, creating somewhere they can experience it together feels like a natural next step.

And with Battersea Power Station as the backdrop, Apple has given itself a pretty recognisable setting.

The venue sits at the northern end of the power station, next door to Apple's London campus. Apple's in-house team, led by Apple Places vice president Kristina Raspe, designed the interior, according to Dezeen. It keeps the building's industrial character with exposed brickwork and steel joists, adding four lit art deco arches and bronze balconies that nod to the power station's original oriel windows. A large glass wall looks out over the central concourse and the River Thames.

The 38-foot stage can face forward or be set up in the round, and the room can run all-seated, all-standing or a mix of the two. Instead of the usual speaker stacks pointing out from the stage, 48 speakers surround the audience. Two studios behind the stage handle multitrack recording and Spatial Audio mixing, either live or after the show, and the room is hardwired for at least 16 cameras feeding a broadcast control room that works with iPhones as well as traditional broadcast kit.

Apple's pitch is that an artist can play an intimate show and leave with a finished Spatial Audio recording, a broadcast-ready mix and multicamera video from a single performance. Apple Music Radio has also moved into new London studios in the same building.

Oliver Schusser, Apple's vice president of Apple Music and International Content, linked the venue to the company's history with the iPod and the long-running iTunes Festival, calling it "an unprecedented step further in our commitment to artists and fans." Zane Lowe, Apple Music's global creative director, said: "We're always looking for new opportunities to connect the artists and the fans because we are fans."

Why owning the room makes Apple Music Hall a smart brand move

Streaming services are hard to tell apart, with broadly the same catalogue at broadly the same price. What Apple can offer that its rivals can't is exclusive content, and a venue built for capturing it gives Apple a steady supply of one-off performances to keep on Apple Music. The 600 people in the room get a rare, intimate gig. Everyone else gets a livestream or a Spatial Audio recording, which is also a showcase for the listening format Apple has been pushing for years.

The location adds to the story. Battersea Power Station is already a London landmark, and Apple's large presence there means the venue feels like part of the company's home in the city rather than a pop-up. Keeping the brick, steel and art deco details also gives the brand some warmth, a welcome counterweight to its usual glass-and-aluminium look. For artists, the offer is practical: play one show, leave with a finished release.

It sits neatly alongside Apple TV sending a Widow's Bay billboard around Cape Cod, another Apple idea that puts something physical into the world and lets people's experience of it do the marketing.

SOURCES

[1] Apple