Apple Axes Music Festival

Apple has confirmed that it will no longer host its annual London based Apple Music Festival after ten years of the event.

The event was previously known as the iTunes festival but rebranded the ‘Apple Music’ Festival in 2015. The ‘festival’ typically consisted of a series of concerts with high profile artists at London’s Roundhouse, with free tickets going to competition winners. Perhaps Apple simply realised that the BBC has the market covered when it comes to using free concerts and events that interfere in the commercial market to extend its brand. Or perhaps they realised that festival cancellations had become quite a trend this year and didn’t want to be seen to be behind the curve.

Artists who played the Apple Music events during its ten-year run included Adele, Oasis, Mumford & Sons, Ed Sheeran, Elton John and One Direction.

The company is still dabbling in promoting live events, recently partnering with and broadcasting shows such as Skepta in London and Arcade Fire in Brooklyn alongside sponsoring Drake’s 2016 tour- though the latter was more part of Drake’s lucrative and multi layered Apple Music endorsement deal.