BRITs boost: Wet Leg sales surge 164% as live performers make massive gains

Last week’s BRIT Awards has delivered some major gains for its live performers, with Wet Leg, Harry Styles, and Lizzo among those to experience significant sales increases in the week following the February 11 ceremony at the O2 in London.

The biggest beneficiary was indie rock outfit Wet Leg. The band, who performed their hit single Chaise Longueon the night and scooped awards for Group of the Year and Best New artist, have seen sales of their self-titled debut album spike 164.6% off of the back of their performance. As a result, it has rocketed up the charts from 112 to 21 in the space of a week. Chaise Longue has also surged up the singles chart, with a sales uplift of 110.3% sending it to No.7 in the midweek charts as of February 16.

The big winner at this year’s BRITs, former One Direction star Harry Styles, has also seen his sales figures grow over the past week. Styles, who performed and took home four awards on the night - Album of the Year for Harry’s House, Artist of the Year, Song of the Year for As It Was, which he also performed live on the night, and Pop/R&B act – has seen his album Harry’s House move from No.6 to No.3 in the charts after a sales increase of 68.1%, while his first two albums have also seen significant gains: Fine Line up by 28.7% from 31 to 22, and Harry Styles moving from 111 to 73, an increase of 32.9%. As It Was has moved up to No. 18 from No. 34 in the midweek Official Singles Chart on the back of a 43.4% increase in consumption.

Other winners and performers to see increases include: Lizzo, whose album Special is in the midweeks at No. 74 having not been placed in last week’s top 200; Becky Hill, whose midweek position for Only On The Weekend is 51 up from 58; and three-time nominee Cat Burns who sees her hit single Go increase by 32.8% moving from 88 to 63.

This year’s BRITs took place on a Saturday night for the first time in its history and notched up viewing figures on ITV1 of just under four million, marking its highest audience in three years. Furthermore, the ceremony scored a 54% share of 16-34 year-olds, its highest such figure in a decade. Over 1.2 million streams on ITVX have been recorded to date.

The BRITs YouTube channel has also seen over five million views so far following the awards, with 69% of the viewers consuming the content under the age of 34. Performances and highlights from the show are available on the BRITs’ official YouTube channel, with 29 million views across all performances achieved to date and with Sam Smith and Kim Petras (10.4 million on TikTok) and Harry Styles (6.4 million on TikTok) performances gaining the most views overall.

Ahead of the show, the BRITs Red Carpet Live Stream was hosted on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter with highlights across Instagram and TikTok, which saw presenters Nella Rose and Michelle Visage interviewing nominees, performers and guest presenters as they arrived on the night, resulting in 453K views. Radio 1 presenter Jack Saunders also returned on the night of the Awards, hosting a backstage area bringing fans all the latest gossip and news with Sam Ryder, Ella Henderson and exclusive interviews with winners including Wet Leg, Becky Hill, Aitch and Fontaines D.C.

On the day the BRITs content received over 75 million video views across all social platforms. Content published with the #BRITs hashtag on TikTok has had one billion total views to date. The BRITs for the second year partnered with TikTok to power the public vote for the four new genre categories, which saw millions of votes cast in the two-week voting period.

This year’s BRIT Awards was led by Damian Christian, managing director and president of promotions, Atlantic Records (Part of Warner Music UK), who commented: “We’re delighted to see such amazing engagement and viewing figures from this year’s BRITs. To grow a live TV audience in today’s world is a tough ask - but the move to a Saturday night, along with our social and digital engagement, has meant we’ve been able to tap into a new audience and grow our viewership. Our aim from the start was to showcase incredible British talent to as many people as possible and I’m so pleased to see such a big audience tuned in and enjoyed the show. The BRITs remains an important night for the music industry and such a big part of British culture.”

Sophie Jones, BPI chief strategy officer and Interim CEO, added: “The innovations we have introduced in the past few years mean the BRIT Awards with Mastercard are now a truly multi-platform event, and with billions of impressions across the BRITs digital channels and conversations for this year’s show pointing to a rise in younger followers as well as an increasingly global audience, and an ITV audience of just under 4 million at peak the highest in three years, we can rightly feel encouraged that The BRITs remain as relevant and engaging as ever as the ultimate showcase for British music and new talent.”

Anya DuSauzay, head of marketing, Parlophone Records, also said: “The post show results really speak for themselves and are a testament to the hard work and passion of the incredible team at the BPI and Somethin’ Else Creative Studios. They continue to push the boundaries of social content strategy, creator and talent collaboration and truly understanding how to speak to a music fan. It was an absolute pleasure to have been part of this year’s BRITs campaign.”

Click here for the full rundown of this year's BRITs winners.