Apple has opened Apple Music Hall, a new concert venue built inside London’s Battersea Power Station. The room holds 600 people and works as both a stage and a full production studio, with recording booths and camera rigs built directly into the walls.
Apple already runs one of its UK offices out of the same building, a few floors above where Apple Music Hall now sits. The venue’s opening was announced earlier today, and it extends Apple’s push into live music discovery on Apple Music and Apple Maps.
Oliver Schusser, Apple’s vice president of Apple Music and International Content, tied the opening back to Apple’s earlier moves in music, from the original iPod to the iTunes Music Festival to Apple Music itself.
Apple Music Hall Seats 600 People Around a Reconfigurable Stage
The building borrows its look from the power station’s original architecture. Heritage brickwork, fluted arches, and bronze balconies echo the site’s old oriel windows, and a glass wall looks out over the concourse and the River Thames.
The stage measures 38 feet wide and can run as a traditional front-facing show or get reconfigured for an in-the-round performance. A 48-speaker sound system wraps around the audience, so a show mixed in Spatial Audio plays back in an immersive format inside the room itself.
Here’s everything Apple has shared about the Music Hall:
- Capacity: 600 people
- Stage width: 38 feet, reconfigurable for front-facing or in-the-round shows
- Sound system: 48 speakers positioned around the audience
- Location: Battersea Power Station, on the River Thames in London
Two Onsite Studios Turn Every Show Into a Finished Recording
Behind the stage, Apple Music Hall runs as a full production facility. Two recording and mix studios built to professional standards let a performance get captured as a multitrack recording and mixed in Spatial Audio, live or afterward.
The venue is wired for 16 or more cameras feeding a dedicated broadcast control room, and that setup runs iPhone video capture alongside the broadcast cameras during a show. An artist can play one set and walk away with a finished Spatial Audio mix, a broadcast-ready cut, and multicamera footage, all from the same performance. Apple plans to livestream shows from the venue globally so fans outside London can watch.
“Great music and memories will be made at Apple Music Hall,” said Zane Lowe, Apple Music’s global creative director.
Apple already builds Spatial Audio into its wider hardware lineup, including support for Apple Music’s Spatial Audio catalog on Sonos speakers. Apple Music Hall gives that same format a stage to record from directly, instead of a mix finished later in a separate studio.
Apple Music Radio’s London Studios Move Into the Same Building
Apple also moved Apple Music Radio’s London operation into Battersea Power Station. Every London-based host and show now broadcasts out of the new studios instead of Apple’s previous location.
Apple Music Radio runs live interviews, global premieres, and surprise performances alongside its regular lineup. It streams free, 24 hours a day, reaching listeners across the more than 167 countries and regions where Apple Music operates.
