Apple is getting back into London live music, and it is doing so in an unusual way. The company has announced Apple Music Hall, a 600-capacity concert venue built underneath its European headquarters at Battersea Power Station. Confirmed on 22 September by both Apple and, in an early look, BBC News, the room is expected to open within weeks, hosting one-off shows by major acts and newer bands, with every performance filmed and streamed online.
The venue's specifications make its real purpose plain. Music Business Worldwide reports a 38-foot stage that can be arranged front-facing or in the round, a 48-speaker spatial sound system around the audience, and two recording and mix studios directly behind the stage where a set can be captured in Spatial Audio, live or afterwards. The building is wired for 16 or more cameras feeding a broadcast control room, with iPhone capture running alongside, and shows will be livestreamed globally. BBC News adds that even the brickwork was chosen to absorb sound, and that Apple Music's radio studios will relocate there from King's Cross, alongside rooms for DJ mixes, writing camps and band rehearsals.
Apple's music chief, Oliver Schusser, told the BBC the room has more cameras and speakers than any venue of its size anywhere in the world, but stressed the company is not entering the concert business as a rival. "We're not trying to be in the live business. We're not trying to compete with anyone," he said, explaining that the sole purpose is making great work with artists and broadcasting it on Apple Music. He pointed to the deliberately smaller footprint as proof, and argued that streaming has left artists with little to do beyond delivery and playlists when fans want to understand them.
The timing is pointed. BBC News frames the opening against a brutal backdrop for British grassroots venues: 45 closed in London last year alone, and roughly 400 clubs vanished nationally between 2020 and 2025 as costs rose and habits changed. A deep-pocketed tech company arriving could worry independent operators, which is partly why Apple is emphasising its scale. The trade reporting also notes Apple Music added concert listings and ticket links through Bandsintown and Ticketmaster deals in March.
There is history here, and Apple is not hiding it. The venue marks a return nine years after the company scrapped the iTunes Festival, its decade-long run of free London shows that the BBC recalls as featuring stars at Koko and the Roundhouse, and that Music Business Worldwide confirms ended in 2017 when Apple said it would not stage it again. Zane Lowe, Apple Music's global creative director, pitched the new hall as a place where artists and fans connect because, in his words, Apple's own staff are fans.
British politicians have embraced the project. Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy called it a huge vote of confidence in the UK as a global creative powerhouse, adding that a company of Apple's scale backing British music signals how strong the creative sectors are. Apple has occupied six floors at the power station since 2023.
The first opening act has not been announced, only that details are expected soon. What Apple has built, in effect, is a small venue that doubles as a studio: every show leaves with a recording, a broadcast-ready mix and multicamera video, whether or not the public ever buys a ticket.
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