Apple Music Hall is a new venue designed to inject more power into the capital’s music scene

Deep in the heart of Battersea Power Station in southwest London, corps of hard-hatted, hi-viz’d builders, fitters and craftspeople are putting their shoulders to the wheel for one last push. We’re two weeks out from today’s unveiling (22nd September), and a few weeks from the opening, of a top-secret cultural hub that’s been five years in the making.

This is the closing stages of a multi-million-pound development with the codename Project Apollo. Two decades since the iTunes Festival (later the Apple Music Festival) launched a 10-year run of London concerts, this is, finally, the bricks-and-mortar arrival of Cupertino’s tech/entertainment behemoth in the live music sector. Presenting, in a bespoke space carved from the vast interiors of Battersea's industrial space-turned-commercial and creative quarter, Apple Music Hall.

The 600-capacity venue is purpose-built with fans and artists in mind – even those who can’t be physically present here on the southern bank of the River Thames. For the punter, Apple Music Hall offers a club-size venue that’s both sweatily intimate and state-of-the-art plush, with unimpeded sightlines, Spatial Audio sound quality and architect detailing (brickwork, fluted arches, black iron) reflecting the iconic, Art Deco design of the century-old power station. With a 48-speaker sound system and 16 hardwired cameras, shows can also be captured for top-quality live recording and/or global livestream.

For artists, Apple Music Hall is adaptive to its core. The 38-foot-stage is fully modular, allowing for configuration for ‘traditional front-facing sets’ or in the middle of the floor for in-the-round-shows. Audiences can be all-seated, all-standing, on bleachers and any point in between.

The facilities backstage, of course, are equally A-list, with capacious, luxe-level dressing-rooms for bands and crews offering penthouse apartment-style views over Battersea Power Station’s shopping and dining galleries. And, adding to the 360-degree facilities for artists, is the relocation here from Kings Cross of Apple Music Radio’s London studios.

With the station’s DJs now broadcasting from brand-new Apple Music Studios in Battersea – also home to the offices of Apple’s European HQ – touring talent have a one-stop-shop for radio sessions, concerts, broadcast events, one-off underplay gigs and launch celebrations. It builds on Apple's LA Radio Studio, creating another cultural node for the company.

‘When designing Apple Music Hall, we wanted to take inspiration from Battersea Power Station while ensuring it features all of the design hallmarks that make it a distinctly Apple space,’ says Kristina Raspe, Vice President, Apple Places. ‘Combining the heritage brick with the new fluted arches and bronze balconies pays tribute to both the building’s history and Apple’s design aesthetic, and seamlessly integrating cutting-edge technology is what Apple does best,’ she adds, ‘This combination has created a truly special venue which will connect artists and fans better than ever before.’

To all of which W* can only say: about time too. We’ve been banging on to Oliver Schusser, Apple’s vice president of Apple Music and international content, about the company’s need to get back into live music every time we’ve met him over the last few years. The German exec was certainly the right man for the job – he came up with the idea for the iTunes Festival back when he was based in London. As I suggested to him when we talked in 2024, on the occasion of the launch of Apple’s new-gen Beats Pill speaker, how about similar Beats live activity? For example: Beats by Beats – the Electronic Music Festival. That idea, I generously offered, was his for free.

‘Ha ha, there could [be]!’ Schusser had replied with a laugh. ‘I would never rule anything out… I don't know whether we do our own festival. But we want to be where music and culture is. That's definitely our place.’ Now, at last, here we are, with Apple’s boots firmly on the ground of a (not-yet-sticky) club floor.

‘We've always thought, wouldn't it be great if we had our own venue?’ Schusser admits when we catch up again. As for the ‘why now?’ question, that’s because ‘we have moved Apple's European headquarters into Battersea Power Station. And there was an opportunity inside the power station a couple of years back to do something absolutely incredible – both from a location point-of-view, but more importantly also from a technology point-of-view.’

Toggling out, Schusser points to other factors informing the decision to make London the location of Apple’s first publicly accessible performance venue anywhere in the world. ‘I lived in the UK for 15 years. I always considered London to be the global capital of live music. It's a combination of the diversity of the artists you have, but also the passion of the fans to go to shows, large and small. And I've always loved going to so many venues in London and in the UK.’

The flexible scope of Apple Music Hall, he continues, its ability to zoom in on club-level shows but beam out to global audiences, is fundamental to company’s vision for the venue. ‘It's important for us to help and provide smaller artists with a smaller space, that has state-of-the-art technology and is really plug-and-play. You can come in, do an interview with [Apple Music Radio DJ] Matt Wilkinson, get your photography and social media done, play a show [and] broadcast worldwide, and get a get a high-quality Spatial Audio recording out of it. That’s a phenomenal setup for artists to do great work.’

While one of the world’s biggest corporations obviously has money to spare when it comes to developing a venue, Schusser insists that he’s not ignorant to the challenges facing grassroots UK music venues. ‘As a fan, there are certainly more concerts now than there were 10, 20, 30 years ago. The choices that fans have, whether it's to go to a festival, to a show… to an arena tour, are bigger than ever.’

The arrival of such a well-funded new venue hasn’t escaped the notice of the UK Government either. Lisa Nandy, the Culture Secretary, issued a statement describing Apple Music Hall as a ‘huge vote of confidence in the UK as a global creative powerhouse. When a company of Apple's scale backs British music and talent, it's a signal of just how strong our creative sectors really are. Our industrial strategy is all about making Britain one of the best places in the world to invest, and the creative industries are a key part of that. These sectors are not only a source of immense national pride, but they also deliver real economic value for the country.’

‘As an industry person,’ Schusser continues, ‘I obviously know that this all sounds easier than it is and there's plenty of bands that are struggling because touring has become incredibly expensive, and for a lot of artists is unaffordable. So our goal is to empower artists to make sure they make enough money from what we do, and to let them do what they do best, which is make music and be on the road and connect with fans.’

When we speak, with the paint and cement literally still wet on Apple Music Hall, Schusser is unable to give any detail on ticket pricing, another hot-button topic within the music industry. Nor can he tell me any artists who’ll be performing. ‘Very soon,’ he promises. ‘But you're not going to be disappointed. You’re going to love it.’

I’ll be holding him to that. I’d also love to see Apple and their shiny new venue doing their bit by paying it forward and supporting a wider UK live sector that, certainly at this club level and below, is struggling in the teeth of mounting costs and declining income – even as that audience appetite for live music, as Schusser says, remains as engaged as ever.

In the meantime: in a venue obviously bristling with future-facing tech and spec, can he isolate a personal favourite design element? ‘We’re pushing the envelope on sound quality,’ Schusser replies. ‘We've developed Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos as a new sound standard that takes us from stereo to a much better experience. This venue is optimised for that. It allows artists not only to record in Spatial Audio but to perform in it, which is really cool and unique.

‘The other thing I love is, you're going to see us shoot a lot of the content with iPhones.’ The benefit of that: ‘Because they're much smaller cameras, you can put them in many more places, and you can use more of them. So we've optimised the space to use technology for the audience to visually experience.’

Those, he says, are two highlights of the imagineering behind Apple Music Hall. ‘But the good thing is, the way the space is set up, you can bring in a stadium show and have a miniature version in front of 600 people. It's really set up in the most flexible way.’

For more information about Apple Music Hall, including how to access tickets for upcoming shows, visit AppleMusicMall.com or follow @applemusichall