Apple has opened Apple Music Hall, a brand-new live music venue built inside London’s historic Battersea Power Station, and the audio infrastructure behind it is squarely aimed at the kind of listener bestofhighend.com covers: a 600-capacity room wrapped in a 48-speaker spatial sound system, with two professional recording and mix studios built to capture every show in Spatial Audio.
Apple Music Hall Is Engineered for Spatial Audio
Apple Music Hall’s brief was to close the gap between the intimacy of a small club and the production value of an arena tour. That starts with a 38-foot-wide stage that can be reconfigured for a traditional front-facing set or a more in-the-round layout, but the real story for audio enthusiasts is what surrounds it: a 48-speaker spatial sound system positioned all around the audience, designed so that when an artist performs in spatial, fans hear that performance in a genuinely immersive environment rather than a simple stereo mix pushed a little wider.
Behind the stage, Apple Music Hall doubles as a full production facility. Two dedicated recording and mix studios, built to professional standards, allow every performance to be captured as a multitrack recording and mixed in Spatial Audio, either live or after the fact. The venue is also hardwired for 16 or more cameras feeding a purpose-built broadcast control room, with infrastructure that lets iPhone video capture run alongside traditional broadcast cameras.
From an intimate show to a finished Spatial Audio release
The pitch to artists is straightforward: perform an intimate live show at Apple Music Hall and walk out with a finished Spatial Audio recording, a broadcast-ready mix, and multicamera video, all captured from a single performance. Apple says shows from the venue will also be livestreamed globally, so the immersive mix is not limited to the 600 people in the room in Battersea.
The building itself leans on the heritage of Battersea Power Station, with brickwork, fluted arches and bronze balconies echoing the site’s industrial past, plus a floor-to-ceiling glass wall that opens the foyer onto the River Thames.
Apple Music Radio also moves into Battersea
Alongside Apple Music Hall, Apple is relocating all of Apple Music Radio’s London-based hosts and shows into brand-new radio studios at the same Battersea site, putting global premieres, interviews and surprise performances a short walk from the stage itself.
Pricing and availability
Apple Music Hall is a fixed venue rather than a consumer product, so there is no purchase price. Tickets for individual shows go on sale per event via applemusichall.com, where fans can also sign up for announcements; upcoming acts already listed for the venue include Elton John, Troye Sivan, Charli XCX and Burna Boy. For more on how bestofhighend.com covers spatial and immersive formats, see our explainer on Dolby Atmos Music.
Key specifications
- Location: Battersea Power Station, London
- Capacity: 600
- Stage: 38 feet wide, reconfigurable front-facing or in-the-round
- Sound system: 48-speaker spatial array surrounding the audience
- Production: 2 recording/mix studios, multitrack capture, live or post Spatial Audio mixing
- Video: hardwired for 16+ cameras plus parallel iPhone capture, dedicated broadcast control room
- Also opening: new Apple Music Radio studios on the same site
