“Apple has confirmed to MBW that it will no longer be hosting the annual Apple Music Festival at London’s Roundhouse,” Tim Ingham reports for Music Business Worldwide.The UK event officially became the Apple Music Festival in 2015 as part of a rebranding away from its original name of the iTunes Festival.”
“The annual show was first held in 2007 – typically running for a month at a time with concerts every night, and tickets going to competition winners,” Ingham reports. “Artists who played the event over its decade-long run included Adele, Oasis, Mumford & Sons, Paul Simon, Ed Sheeran, Coldplay, Lady Gaga, Arctic Monkeys, Kendrick Lamar, Pharrell Williams, The Weeknd, One Direction and Beck. Over the last two years, the Apple Music Festival has become 10 night-long event at the Roundhouse in Camden, London during September.”
“The cancellation of the festival doesn’t signal a move away from live events by Apple Music completely. The brand was recently a partner of shows by Haim and Skepta in London and Arcade Fire in Brooklyn,” Ingham reports. “The closure of the Apple Music Festival is likely because Apple is concentrating its resources on one-off events like these…”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple has likely determined that they can get more bang for their buck via individual events versus one big annual event.
SEE ALSO:
Apple Music Festival hits London with 10 nights of spectacular performances this September – August 25, 2016
Apple Music Festival was some of the best looking, best sounding concert video produced. High production values gave it that look and feel that stood out from the rest of the concert world. Here’s hoping that the old shows will be available to enjoy once again via streaming some day soon.
And yet, since I’m 20 years past my 20s, I just didn’t care.
And yet, since I’m 40 years past my 20’s, it’s been determined that it was all about you.
disappointed about this. Lets hope its a change in emphasis as stated rather than another ill timed drawback. In reality they probably feel its done its job.
I see a lot more artists promoting Spotify these days. Not sure all is well in Apple Music land
Wonder how big a drain the AMF was for Apple and what no longer sponsoring such a large and visible event will do for Apple Music sales.
A music festival sounded like a great idea. I was crestfallen when I found out that classical orchestral music would be woefully underrepresented.
That is interesting. I think that the festival market is a great way to get your message and products and services directly into fans hands. It seems weird that they would “downsize” from festivals to one offs.