Apple Music festival cancelled after 10 years

One Direction launched their final tour with a date at the Apple Music Festival in 2015

The Apple Music festival, which brought stadium-sized acts like One Direction and Lady Gaga to London's Roundhouse, has been axed after 10 years.

The annual event began in 2007 and typically ran for a month, with tickets given away to competition winners.

In recent years, the festival had been scaled back to 10 nights, with last year's line-up including The 1975, Britney Spears and Chance The Rapper.

Apple has not explained why the festival has come to an end.

However, it remains heavily involved with live music, recently sponsoring Drake's Summer Sixteen tour, and staging shows by Skepta, Arcade Fire and Lana Del Rey, some of which were streamed on its Apple Music app.

The company has also started making original content - including a standalone Carpool Karaoke series and a documentary strand called Behind The Album, which has so far featured Haim and Harry Styles.

The Apple Music festival started out as the iTunes festival, but was rebranded with the Apple Music badge after the company's streaming service launched in 2015.

It had taken place at London's ICA and Koko nightclub before settling into its residency at Camden's Roundhouse.

Although it attracted huge stars to London, the concerts often came in for criticism because the audience, who got in for free, were less enthusiastic than regular concert-goers.

In 2013, Alex Turner implored the audience to "wake up" during Arctic Monkeys' headline set, dedicating the song Snap Out Of it to them.

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