Who benefitted from the ‘Glastonbury Effect’?

Another Glastonbury has been and gone and, thanks to the BBC’s comprehensive coverage, those of us too wedded to home comforts to brave the real thing could again indulge in watercooler conversations about who we did and didn’t ‘see’. The small matter of a certain national team crashing out of a certain sporting event may have stolen the thunder of some of the acts playing on the Sunday afternoon but there were still plenty of musical talking points and it’s always interesting to look at sales in the following week to see who has and hasn’t benefitted from what might be termed the ‘Glastonbury Effect’.

A quick glance at the album and singles charts would seem to suggest that Muse were the big beneficiaries: five of their albums charted in the Top 200 and the most recent, The Resistance, enjoyed the biggest unit sales increase of any title by a band performing. Their cumulative album sales improved by over 250% and the Top 200 singles chart featured no fewer than 11 of their tracks, with most recording increases of over 200% on the previous week’s sales tally.

Three albums apiece by the other Pyramid Stage headliners (Gorillaz and Stevie Wonder) featured in the chart but some of the biggest successes came from performers located elsewhere on the site. Mumford and Sons played on the John Peel stage on Friday but their rapturously-received set ensured their Sigh No More album received the second-biggest unit sales increase of the weekend. Likewise, albums by Editors and The XX also rose by over 50 places despite their not performing on the main stage.

Many artists playing at Glastonbury enjoy an uplift in sales the week after, although it cannot be claimed that every increase is directly attributable to that act performing there - often they are already in the process of promoting albums or singles, or titles are in a sale. There is, however, an undoubted effect on the charts the week after it has taken place – 58 of the Top 200 artist albums were by acts that had performed at Glastonbury, and 49 of those recorded a sales increase.