Shane Cole
Music fans in the U.S. will finally get a chance to attend Apple's iTunes Festival as the company announced on Wednesday that the free concert event will come to 2014 edition of the annual SXSW conference in Austin, Texas.
Running from March 11 to 15, the festival will feature performances from Coldplay, Imagine Dragons, Pitbull, Keith Urban, and ZEDD, among others yet to be announced. As with past iTunes Festivals, Apple will stream all five nights live to Macs, iOS devices, and the Apple TV.
"The iTunes Festival in London has become an incredible way for Apple to share its love of music with our customers," said Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of Internet Software and Services. "We're excited about the incredible lineup of artists performing and SXSW is the perfect place to debut the first iTunes Festival in the US."
The shows will take place at ACL Live at the Moody Theater, home of Austin City Limits. The official iTunes Festival application for iOS will offer users the ability to view the shows in high-definition on both Apple TV and any compatible iOS device, and users can also stream to their Mac on-demand from iTunes.
To date, the iTunes Festival has been limited to London, and over 400 artists have performed in front of more than 430,000 fans. Apple says tens of millions of users have watched the performances from the festival online.
Apple has yet to reveal ticketing information for this year's festival, though past events have been free of charge for those who win tickets via a lottery.
Performances from previous years are available for purchase and download on the iTunes Store.
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Wesley Hilliard
AppleInsider Staff
Andrew Orr
Amber Neely
William Gallagher
14 Comments
That must be the music event Kanye West was complaining about. Like he doesn't complain about everything. http://www.cultofmac.com/266765/kanye-west-tells-tim-cook-quit-trying-act-like-youre-dumb-video/
Kayne West is one of the biggest F&#^# idiots out there. His music sucks too. Maybe he's just butthurt because other artists do this for the passion and he does it for the money. Sorry for the rant...didn't mean to offend anyone here at all.
On a side note....I would really like to attend this.
Maybe he's just butthurt because other artists do this for the passion and he does it for the money.
Get out of it, musicians need to earn money as much as anyone else. Even those with passion.
Apple always claim to love music, so why don't they pay for it when it comes to iTunes Festival?
I think the iTunes Festival is great for music lovers, but can totally see where Kanye is coming from.
[quote name="Crowley" url="/t/162098/apple-bringing-itunes-festival-to-america-at-sxsw-2014/0_100#post_2474213"] Get out of it, musicians need to earn money as much as anyone else. Even those with passion. Apple always claim to love music, so why don't [I]they[/I] pay for it when it comes to iTunes Festival? I think the iTunes Festival is great for music lovers, but can totally see where Kanye is coming from. [/quote] Tim cook wants the artist to perform for free, he's paying for the venue, he has shareholders looking for no more decreases on margin, and he's not charging anyone ticket prices. Doesn't sound like too bad of a deal to me. Since you say apple should pay for a free event, does that mean you should 'get out of it'?
A bad deal for who? What does the artist get out of it? I don't really think Kanye, or most of the other artists that play the Festival, needs exposure.
Why does the venue get to charge and not the performers? Why does Apple get the benefit of content exclusive to their devices/software, but the artists have to provide their services for free?
If the artists want to do that, that's fine. But Kanye is within his rights to say it doesn't work for him, and claiming he's "butthurt" over it is silly.
Since you say apple should pay for a free event, does that mean you should 'get out of it'?