Apple Music opens new live concert venue in London

Apple’s UK headquarters at the famous Battersea Power Station has added a new Apple Music venue for live concerts and Spatial Audio recording.

Apple Battersea is home to both an Apple Store and the company’s main UK offices, each housed within the iconic Battersea Power Station. Now there’s also Apple Music Hall, a 600-seat auditorium with 48-speaker spatial sound system, 16 or more cameras, two audio recording studios, and a broadcast video control room.

“Apple’s deep love for music dates all the way back to the very beginning, from the launch of the iPod to the long-running iTunes Music Festival to the debut of Apple Music,” Oliver Schusser, Apple’s vice president of Apple Music and International Content said in a statement. “Today, with the opening of Apple Music Hall, we are once again taking an unprecedented step further in our commitment to artists and fans by supporting live music in ways only Apple can do.”

Battersea Power Station was built in the 1930s and is famously an enormous brick building with four high towers. Now a shopping mall with offices, even entirely new sections such as Apple Music Hall have mimicked the brick facade to stay in keeping with its architectural heritage.

The building is by the River Thames and the new Apple Music Hall also features a large glass wall that offers a view of the river.

The foyer of the new Apple Music Hall shows how it has retained the brickwork of the Battersea Power Station – image credit: Apple.

Apple Music Hall is built to be both a concert venue and a recording studio. Apple claims that musicians will be able to perform “an intimate live show for fans… and walk out with a finished Spatial Audio recording, a broadcast-ready mix, and multi-camera video” from a single show.

Such shows will also be able to be streamed live worldwide on Apple Music.

“At Apple Music, we care deeply about music, the artists who make it, and their life stories,” said Zane Lowe, Apple Music’s global creative director and lead anchor for Apple Music 1. “We’re always looking for new opportunities to connect the artists and the fans because we are fans.”

“What better way to celebrate this relationship than a new music venue where we get to experience amazing music in an amazing space and share it with the world,” he continued. “Great music and memories will be made at Apple Music Hall.”

The new Apple Music Hall in London comes almost exactly five years after Apple France opened a studio in Paris.