That reminds me a bit of The Harmsworth Room [1] in the Churchill War Rooms, where you can dine while you stare at the "original 1940s electric generator wall complete with dials and switches". Very cool space!
The redeveloped Battersea Power Station is one of the most soulless, dead-eyed, wealth-obsessed places in all of London. This is a terrible place to put something like a music venue, unless your target market is the adult children of emigres with unexplained wealth, and I think it speaks to Apple’s sanitised, emotionally-distant, luxury-focussed worldview that they would consider it.
Incredible building. Awful development. They could have donated ten million quid to the Music Venue Trust instead.
The free U2 album looks like the work of a tastemaker by comparison.
I mean, you can say that Fred again and co. are "sanitised", "corpo music" and etc. But quite a lot of people will happily buy the tickets, and go to the concerts. The only reason I'm bringing him up, is cause Apple featured his live concert.
Obviously Apple is in the game of making money in the end. Your local DJ that plays sets at 2am on a weekday probably won't be performing at their venue. But I wouldn't call every random friend group "adult children emigres with unexplained wealth" as a single target audience. A lot of people will spend a couple of hundred $ for a fun night out, and they don't have to be extremely rich.
> Your local DJ that plays sets at 2am on a weekday probably won't be performing at their venue.
This is a really tone-deaf straw man caricature of what I am saying, I'm afraid.
> But I wouldn't call every random friend group "adult children emigres with unexplained wealth" as a single target audience.
It's a pretty solid, not even satirical summary of many of the people who live in that development. It's not really a place for Londoners.
If I were a gambling man I would suggest to you that tickets for those events are likely to start at more than the couple of hundred dollars you are suggesting people spend without thinking. The cheapest standing tickets for the next Oasis tour (at very large music stadiums) are more than $225.
I don't think Apple intends to make significant revenue from ticket sales: this venue has seats for only 600. The purpose of the audience is to help musicians create good live and recorded music.
I beg to differ. I stayed in Battersea for a week while exploring London. I found the place very welcoming, safe and inspiring. It’s convenient to get to and from with its dedicated underground line.
I can see how it fits the Apple
brand experience very well (they don’t do gritty stuff). In fact I believe there’s already an Apple Store there.
Well, the type of places that OP described are full of service people, paid the best wage that people with little training can make, because they can ALWAYS be nice and welcoming… even when being screamed at and spat upon by the rudest, meanest, and most despicable nepo-jerk you could imagine!
But, aside from the convenient access to the underground, I’m really intrigued by what you found “inspiring” about this place?
(I don’t know a single thing about it, never even heard of it, so I’m torn as to which of you two to believe… lol)
Yay, vertical integration! This shit needs to be stopped. Similarly to movie theaters and movie studios, venues, ticket providers and distributors/streamers/studios should not be allowed to be owned or controlled by the same entities.
OK, but the effect you are worried about won't be caused by Apple's owning 1 venue with a capacity of 600 people when there are many 100s of much larger venues.
https://batterseapowerstation.co.uk/retailers/control-room-a...
[1] https://www.churchillwarroomsvenuehire.co.uk/spaces/harmswor...
The redeveloped Battersea Power Station is one of the most soulless, dead-eyed, wealth-obsessed places in all of London. This is a terrible place to put something like a music venue, unless your target market is the adult children of emigres with unexplained wealth, and I think it speaks to Apple’s sanitised, emotionally-distant, luxury-focussed worldview that they would consider it.
Incredible building. Awful development. They could have donated ten million quid to the Music Venue Trust instead.
The free U2 album looks like the work of a tastemaker by comparison.
Obviously Apple is in the game of making money in the end. Your local DJ that plays sets at 2am on a weekday probably won't be performing at their venue. But I wouldn't call every random friend group "adult children emigres with unexplained wealth" as a single target audience. A lot of people will spend a couple of hundred $ for a fun night out, and they don't have to be extremely rich.
This is a really tone-deaf straw man caricature of what I am saying, I'm afraid.
> But I wouldn't call every random friend group "adult children emigres with unexplained wealth" as a single target audience.
It's a pretty solid, not even satirical summary of many of the people who live in that development. It's not really a place for Londoners.
If I were a gambling man I would suggest to you that tickets for those events are likely to start at more than the couple of hundred dollars you are suggesting people spend without thinking. The cheapest standing tickets for the next Oasis tour (at very large music stadiums) are more than $225.
There's also a little local shop for the residents that stocks wine costing over £1000 a bottle.
It's a grotesque place.
No music venue in London is really "gritty" anymore but loads of them are under threat from developers and need all the help they can to survive.
Putting a music venue in the Battersea Power Station development is just making a music venue for the foreign money laundromat.
But, aside from the convenient access to the underground, I’m really intrigued by what you found “inspiring” about this place?
(I don’t know a single thing about it, never even heard of it, so I’m torn as to which of you two to believe… lol)