Apple has decided to pull the plug on the Apple Music Festival, which has been taking place at London’s Roundhouse since 2009. It was originally known as the iTunes Festival but was rebranded to the Apple Music Festival two years ago.
The event used to last a whole month, with nightly concerts and tickets being awarded to competition winners. For the past two years, however, it was scaled down to ten nights of festivities.
Over the past ten years, artists who performed at the festival included Oasis, Adele, Paul Simon, Mumford & Sons, Coldplay, Ed Sheeran, Arctic Monkeys, Lady Gaga, Pharrell Williams, Kendrick Lamar, One Direction, The Weekend and Beck.
Last year, highlights included performances by Alicia Keys, Chance The Rapper, The 1975 and Elton John.
This does not mean, however, that Apple has totally withdrawn from live events. Apple Music recently partnered with Arcade Fire for shows in Brooklyn in addition to concerts with Skepta and Haim in London. Apple was also present at SXSW festival in Texas earlier in 2017, where it sponsored shows from Vince Staples, Lana Del Rey and DJ Khaled.
Apple Music also backed Drake’s Summer Sixteen Tour last year and it regularly sponsors live events from the artists in its ‘Up Next’ programme.
The company most likely decided to terminate the Apple Music Festival to focus on one-off events and to offer original content in its videos, which in recent times has included a documentary show on Harry Styles and a series based on the popular Carpool Karaoke.
The first iTunes Festival took place at the ICA in London. Afterwards, it moved to the Koko in Camden for two years and finally the Roundhouse became its home in 2009.
Over the last ten years, event and broadcast partners of the festival have included Live Nation, ITV2 and DICE.