From Moscone to the Steve Jobs Theater
A map of where Apple has held its events since 2001, from trade show halls and a small campus auditorium to a theater of its own.
By Invite Archive · October 25, 2026 · Updated October 26, 2026 · 4 min read
Where Apple holds an event says almost as much as what it announces. A convention hall full of developers, a theater in San Francisco, a small auditorium on its own campus, a museum in New York: each choice sets a tone. Invite Archive records the venue of every event in its collection, and the map that emerges shows how Apple moved from renting stages to building its own.
The convention center years
For most of the 2000s, Apple's biggest stages belonged to trade shows. Steve Jobs gave his Macworld Expo keynotes every January at Moscone Center in San Francisco, including the introduction of iPhone at Macworld 2007. WWDC moved to Moscone West in 2003 after years at the San Jose Convention Center, and it stayed there until 2015.
Moscone West appears at least 17 times in the archive, more than any venue except the Steve Jobs Theater. It hosted the introduction of iPhone 4 at WWDC10, where a demo failed because hundreds of Wi-Fi hotspots in the room overloaded the network, and the first preview of iOS 7 at WWDC13.
Yerba Buena and the San Francisco theaters
For product launches outside the trade shows, Apple preferred a smaller, more theatrical venue: the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. It appears at least 10 times in the archive, from 2006 to 2015. Apple introduced iPad there in 2010 and iPad 2 in 2011, and returned for iPhone 5 in 2012 and the pricing of Apple Watch at Spring Forward in 2015.
When events grew larger, Apple moved to the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, used three times in 2015 and 2016, including for iPhone 7 and WWDC16.
Close to home: the Town Hall
Some of the most important events in the archive took place in a small room. The Town Hall auditorium on Apple's Infinite Loop campus in Cupertino was small, but it hosted the introduction of iPod in 2001, iPhone 4S and Siri in 2011, the day before Steve Jobs died, and iPhone 5s with Touch ID in 2013. The archive lists the Town Hall or Apple's campus for 11 events between 2001 and 2016.
The room was a signal in itself. Events held there were usually smaller or more focused, and the line for Let us loop you in in 2016 named the campus outright.
A venue with history
One venue was chosen for its past. For Wish we could say more in September 2014, Apple booked the Flint Center for the Performing Arts in Cupertino, where Steve Jobs had introduced the original Macintosh in 1984. Thirty years later, Tim Cook used the same stage to introduce Apple Watch, the first new product category of his time as CEO.
Leaving California
A handful of events left the Bay Area, and each time the location was part of the message.
- In January 2012, Apple held an education event at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York to launch interactive textbooks.
- In March 2018, it went to Lane Tech College Prep High School in Chicago to make its case to teachers.
- In October 2018, it chose the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York for an event about creativity, with more than 370 different versions of its logo on the invitations and a performance by Lana Del Rey.
- In April 2007, it held Lights, Camera in Las Vegas, during the week of a video industry trade show, to reach film and TV professionals.
Building its own stage
In 2017, Apple opened the Steve Jobs Theater at Apple Park, its new headquarters in Cupertino, and the venue question was answered for good. The invitation for its first event was Let's meet at our place, and the event opened with Steve Jobs's voice. The theater appears 22 times in the archive, from 2017 to 2026, by far the most of any venue.
WWDC followed. After three years at the McEnery Convention Center in San Jose, from 2017 to 2019, the conference moved to Apple Park when the pandemic made a large gathering impossible, and it has stayed there since.
When the venue became a set
From 2020, the venue changed meaning. The keynotes of WWDC20 and every event that followed were films, recorded at Apple Park and streamed online, and the Steve Jobs Theater became as much a set as a stage. When guests returned in 2022, they watched the same film together and then tried the products in person.
Back on the road
The newest formats have taken Apple back out into the world. In March 2026, an Apple Experience took place at the same time in New York, London and Shanghai. In October, Welcome home was held in New York for Apple's smart home products, and Pro and tell in Los Angeles.
After two decades, Apple has come full circle: from renting stages in other people's buildings, to building its own theater, to taking small, hands-on events to the cities where its customers are. Read more about how the invitations themselves changed in A history of Apple's invitations.