Apple's next event is happening on March 4, it's not at Apple Park. In Apple's marketing world, location definitely matters.
Whenever Apple announces a new event and sends out invitations, the immediate thought is that it is for the launch of a new product. The rumor mill is then immediately scoured for potential items to launch at the event.
What many industry observers don't immediately consider is where the event is taking place. The problem is, that historically has bearing on what Apple is about to say.
The latest event announcement is a confusing one, as it falls far outside the usual pattern of a typical Apple Event. The March 4 event is being held in three locations, with events happening in New York City, London, and Shanghai on the same date.
Apple invite to New York City
As part of the invitation, which includes an Apple logo design and no real hints about the design, there's also an odd lack of streaming information. When Apple launches something, it streams the event because it's a major marketing opportunity.
The logo does hint at the glass layers that go into a product like the iPhone 17e, while the colors could signify the rumored MacBook with an iPhone chip and multiple colorways, but that is pure speculation.
Even taking all of that into account, the real oddity is that it's not being held at Apple Park at all.
Home advantage
If you were to scan through the list of previous Apple special events, it tends to hold between two and four of them across the year. At least, for the last ten years anyway.
Of those events, the vast majority of them take place at Apple Park, its headquarters. This happened for the first time on September 12, 2017, and has occurred a total of 17 times from that date onward.
This makes sense for Apple on multiple levels. It takes advantage of the Steve Jobs Theater on Apple Park, a venue designed for presentations both to the media and to its own employees working at the campus.
Exterior of the Steve Jobs Theater - Image Credit: Apple
There's also the fact that Apple has considerably more control over its presentation and events at the Steve Jobs Theater than it has at other locations. It's a big advantage for a company that is extremely careful about its public image.
It's also handy because it doesn't have to travel to hold the event, but instead bring the outside parties to it. The guests have to travel to wherever the event is, so why not make it at Apple's home.
These counts don't include WWDC, which was held at the San Jose Convention Center until 2019, the 2017 event at McEnery Convention Center, and at Moscone West until 2016 before that. From 2020, it became a virtual conference prerecorded at Apple Park, with attendees later visiting the headquarters as the world opened back up from COVID.
Apple didn't return to the San Jose Convention Center once it had established its new WWDC formula.
Using its home base for launches also happened before of the Apple Park move, with some held at 1 Infinite Loop.
Out of the (Apple) Park
Not all of Apple's special events took place within its own confines or at its previous WWDC locations, either. Before its tendency to stay local, it did hold big events at various locations.
In 2014, it held its iPhone 6 and Apple Watch event at the Flint Center in Cupertino. The following year, the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium was used.
Early in the Apple Park era, it held some events outside of its campus.
The 2018 events included a "Field Trip" to Lane Technical College Prep High School in Chicago for an iPad 6 event focused on education. Later that year, the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York City was used to launch Mac and iPad Pro models, with Lana Del Rey singing.
However, those were the last real in-person event for a major product launch that was held off-campus. Ever since Brooklyn, it's been a virtual event during COVID and on-campus in-person gatherings.
Creator events
While Apple hasn't done anything off-site for its product launches lately, it has been doing more outreach with creators. Most of that outreach has been far from Apple Park.
In March 2025, this took the form of a one-day "Apple University," showing student influencers how its tools help education and content creation.
An Apple University event - Image Credit: Apple
A few months later, social media influencers were invited to a similar event in Colorado. Again, this seemed to be more a "product activation" event that raised awareness instead of bringing out anything groundbreaking.
There was also an event in late January where select content creators and influencers were invited to an Apple Experience, coinciding with the launch of the Apple Creator Studio subscription.
Once again, this wasn't a launch event itself, but something that related to a just-launched product.
In all of these cases, influencers were invited to appear and discuss the event afterwards, but there was no streaming component at all. It was less a presentation, more an experience.
Less launch, more showcase
So far, Apple has established a pattern in recent years of holding its product launches locally, or as a press release update for lesser introductions. As we know about Apple, it's very predictable with its actions, and will do Apple Park events for major products for some time to come.
From what we've seen so far, Apple's current plan for external events isn't about actual product launches. It's about massaging the message Apple sends out via social media influencers.
The March 4 event seems like it could fall into this influencer-style event category. That said, it is being held in three locations at the same time, which is unusual for Apple.
The complete lack of any mention of streaming doesn't bode well for it to be an actual product launch event itself. At least, not streaming from the actual event locations.
One hardware launch possibility is a mix of the two event types. In such a scenario, Apple does a prerecorded launch video as usual, but instead of providing media with access to the hardware while at Apple Park, that bit happens at the three locations.
This is what we expect this time around.
For Apple, it is advantageous since it brings the product hardware closer to where the journalists and influencers are. This increases the number of hands that can play with the new products.
And, it does it all, without forcing hundreds of representatives to fly to Cupertino for a day-long event.
Ultimately, outside of Apple Park, no one really knows what Apple will do on March 4. Hardware may be coming that day, and we expect there will be something to play with there for attendees, who are mostly video-focused.
The playbook is different this time around.
