Apple Music Hall revealed: New high tech music venue in Battersea from the people behind your iPhone
Opening on September 28th, it boasts a state of the art performance space.
Though London has plenty of brilliant places to see live music, from tiny pub back rooms to enormous arenas, it’s an area of the capital under fire. For every great venue Londoners can enjoy, there’s a handful more either closed or under threat of closure from rising costs — especially in the grassroots space where up-and-coming artists build a name for themselves outside of record label prep schools.
Entering into the fray is Apple — yes, the Apple behind your iPhone. Having changed the way the world consumes music with the iPod, iTunes, and now purveyor of the Apple Music streaming service, Apple is hoping to carve out a rather different niche with its brand-new Apple Music Hall, which opens this month inside Battersea Power Station.
The 600-capacity venue has been designed to bring the intimacy of a small gig together with the production capabilities you'd normally expect from a much larger concert space. And, naturally, because this is Apple we're talking about, there is a serious amount of technology hiding behind the scenes.
Apple Music Hall takes plenty of visual cues from its iconic surroundings, with heritage brickwork, fluted arches and bronze balconies echoing the architecture of Battersea Power Station. It’s slick — this is a venue more in the vein of the Royal Festival Hall or Barbican than, say, the sticky floors of the Brixton Academy.
But it's what's happening behind the stage that makes the new venue particularly interesting.
Small venue, big tech
Apple says the 600-capacity space has been deliberately designed to “close the gap between intimacy and production value”.
The 38-foot-wide stage can be configured for a conventional front-facing performance or an in-the-round setup, while a 48-speaker Spatial Audio system surrounds the audience. That means you could be watching an artist from relatively close range while experiencing the sort of audio and staging production normally associated with a much larger show.
You won’t necessarily need to be in the room to enjoy the performances taking place at Apple Music Hall, either. Behind the stage are two professional recording and mixing studios, allowing performances to be captured as multitrack recordings and mixed in Spatial Audio either during or after the show.
The venue is also wired for 16 or more cameras, feeding into a dedicated broadcast control room. Apple says iPhone video capture can run alongside conventional broadcast cameras, meaning an artist can perform a relatively intimate London gig and leave with a broadcast-ready mix and multicamera footage. It’s all set for capturing a full concert movie, ready to be shared with fans — presumably through Apple’s own platforms.
ITunes Festival: The Sophomore Album?
The opening also marks something of a return to Apple's long-running relationship with London's live music scene.
Apple previously brought its Apple Music Festival (née iTunes Festival) to venues across London (with a long-standing stint at the Roundhouse). Massive acts like Oasis, Amy Winehouse, Elton John, Coldplay, Charli XCX and dozens more household names played. The line-ups really were impressive.
Apple Music Hall takes that idea in a rather different direction: rather than temporarily taking over an existing venue, Apple now has a permanent London home specifically designed around live performance, recording and broadcasting.
According to Apple Music's global creative director and Apple Music 1 host Zane Lowe, the intention is to make the connection between artists and fans the centre of it.
“We’re always looking for new opportunities to connect the artists and the fans because we are fans,” he said of the opening.
“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. Great music and memories will be made at Apple Music Hall.”
There are still some questions to be answered. Apple has yet to announce the full programme of artists who will take to its new stage, how ticketing will work, and how much shows will cost. Given the company's track record of landing some seriously big names for its London music events, that's the bit we're particularly interested in seeing — could Apple subsidise the cost of seeing the mega-stars it pulls into its orbit? And will there be space for unsigned artists whose live music performance options are dwindling? It’ll be exciting to see how the Battersea spot evolves, but consider us very excited indeed.
Skip the search — follow Shortlist on Google News to get our best lists, news, features and reviews at the top of your feeds!
