Apple builds its first concert hall inside Battersea Power Station

Apple is getting ready to open its first music venue, a 600-capacity hall on the second and third floors of Battersea Power Station, and expects the doors to open in the coming weeks. It has not yet announced an opening date or a line-up, and it has not said how tickets will be sold.

The venue is called Apple Music Hall. Its programme will combine single concerts by big-name stars with sets from newer bands. Every show will be filmed, and Apple Music will stream selected performances live to audiences around the world.

What is inside Apple Music Hall at Battersea

Concertgoers will take a lift up from the northern side of the power station. It brings them out on the balcony level, where there is a bar with views over the Thames. The stage is 38 feet wide. It can face the crowd in the usual way, or it can be removed so that acts and DJs play in the round in the middle of the room.

The hall has space for standing crowds, tiered seats and balcony boxes. A ring of 48 speakers around the audience provides Spatial Audio sound. Apple’s smooth, curved fit-out sits against the original brick, arched vaults and dark ironwork of the power station, which is Grade II listed.

Performers get dressing rooms with en-suite showers. Behind the stage there are also two recording and mixing studios, and the room is wired for more than 16 cameras. Apple Music’s radio stations will move into new studios in the building from their current base in King’s Cross.

Apple says it is not competing with other London venues

The hall is opening at a hard time for live music in the capital, where 45 venues closed last year. Oliver Schusser, Apple Music’s vice president, said the aim was to work with artists and broadcast the results. “We’re not trying to be in the live business,” he said. He added that the small size of the room was one of the main reasons for that.

Culture secretary Lisa Nandy called the venue “a huge vote of confidence in the UK as a global creative powerhouse”.

The hall brings Apple back to live music in London nine years after it dropped the iTunes Festival, which put on free concerts at venues including Koko and The Roundhouse. The first act is due to be announced soon, and people can register for updates on the Apple Music Hall website.