Apple has just opened a new concert venue at its UK headquarters at Battersea Power Station in London, which appears tailor-made for Apple Music Live concerts and recordings. Apple Music Hall is designed as an “intimate concert venue” that can accommodate up to 600 people standing and seated, the company said. As you would expect, it’s also one of the most modern in the world with 48 speakers, 16 camera locations and a Spatial Audio live recording facility.
“Today, with the opening of Apple Music Hall, we are once again taking an unprecedented step in our commitment to artists and fans by supporting live music in a way that only Apple can,” said Oliver Schusser, vice president of Apple Music and Worldwide Content.
The new venue’s interior design is inspired by Battersea Power Station with “heritage bricks, fluted arches and bronze balconies” as well as a wall of glass, Apple noted. The main seating and balcony are designed to provide audience privacy, while the 38-foot-wide stage can be reconfigured for traditional forward-facing settings or in-the-round experiences.
The venue is also designed for audiences who cannot attend live performances. With a 48-speaker spatial audio system with Dolby Atmos sound system and 16 camera mounting locations as well as a complete live streaming facility, it can broadcast high-quality live music and video around the world. It is equipped with two dedicated recording and mixing studios so that performances can be captured in multi-track recordings mixed in Spatial Audio, “live or after the fact,” Apple said. For video, there’s a purpose-built broadcast control room with “infrastructure to support iPhone video capture” and likely other, higher quality cameras.
It is likely to be popular with musicians thanks to the high-end band and crew boxes offering views of Battersea Power Station’s shops and restaurants. Apple will certainly be the main beneficiary of this new venue, but so will emerging artists.
“It’s important for us to help and provide small artists with a smaller space, with cutting-edge technology and truly plug-and-play,” Schusser said. Wallpaper. “You can come in, do an interview…, do your photos and your social media, play a show, broadcast it around the world and get a high-quality spatial audio recording out of it. It’s a phenomenal setup for artists to do great work.”
