Apple opens live music venue at Battersea Power Station

Apple has opened Apple Music Hall, a new 600-capacity live music venue inside London’s Battersea Power Station. The company says the site is intended to give artists a close-up setting for performances while also providing the technical facilities to record, mix, film and stream each show.

The venue sits beside the River Thames and draws on Battersea Power Station’s industrial character. Its design includes exposed heritage brickwork, fluted arches and bronze balconies, while a large glass wall looks across the building’s concourse and towards the river.

According to Apple.com, the hall is built to bring together the atmosphere of a small concert and the production capabilities normally associated with much larger shows. Its stage measures 38 feet across and can be arranged for a conventional setup facing the audience or adapted for performances staged in the round. The layout is intended to keep audiences close to the performer regardless of the format.

A concert venue built as a production facility

A 48-speaker sound system surrounds the audience, allowing performances to be presented in Spatial Audio. Apple says this can give people in the room a more immersive version of a live show, while also making it possible to create Spatial Audio recordings for later listening.

The technical operation of the hall continues behind the stage. Two recording and mixing studios have been installed to professional standards, enabling performances to be captured as multitrack sessions. Those recordings can be mixed in Spatial Audio either during the event or afterwards.

The venue also has a broadcast control room and connections for at least 16 cameras. Its infrastructure supports conventional broadcast cameras alongside iPhone video capture, allowing both systems to operate at the same time. As a result, a single performance can produce an audio recording, a broadcast mix and multicamera video without requiring the artist to move the show to another facility.

Apple says shows from the hall will be livestreamed internationally, giving audiences outside London access to performances staged for the venue. Information about forthcoming events and ticket access is available through the Apple Music Hall website, with updates also being shared on its Instagram and TikTok accounts.

Apple Music Radio moves to Battersea

The opening is accompanied by a new base for Apple Music Radio. The service’s London-based presenters and programmes will now broadcast from radio studios at Battersea Power Station.

Apple Music Radio operates around the clock and is available globally at no cost. Its programming includes artist interviews, album and song premieres, longer-form specials and surprise performances. Apple presents the service as a meeting point for musicians and listeners, with an emphasis on presenter-led and artist-focused programming.

The move gives the radio operation a physical connection to the new performance venue. Live events, recorded sessions, interviews and broadcasts can all be produced within the same Battersea setting, although Apple has not announced a complete schedule for the hall or described which artists will appear first.

Part of Apple’s broader music strategy

Apple’s involvement in music stretches from the iPod and iTunes to the former iTunes Music Festival and the current Apple Music service. The company says the new hall extends that relationship into live performance, using its audio, video and broadcast systems to make concerts available both to people in the building and to listeners and viewers elsewhere.

Apple Music offers a catalogue of more than 100 million songs, along with curated playlists, interviews, global premieres, time-synchronised lyrics, lossless audio and Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos. The service is available in more than 167 countries and regions across Apple devices, the web, Android and Windows, as well as selected smart speakers and televisions.

The company says Apple Music does not carry advertising and does not share consumer data with third parties. The new London venue does not replace those digital services; instead, it gives Apple a dedicated location for creating the live recordings, video and radio programming that can feed them.