Immediately hailed as one of the greatest headline sets that the festival has ever seen, Elton John’s Glastonbury performance delighted audiences both at Worthy Farm and in living rooms across the UK. In fact, so inspired were fans by his appearance that Casio Music UK is reporting a Rocket Man-fuelled uptick in sales of its pianos and keyboards in the following days.
In the week after the festival (June 26 to July 3) Casio says that sales of its digital pianos and electronic keyboards more than doubled in comparison to the same period last year - they were up a whopping 133%. Traffic to its website was up by 70%, and Google searches for ‘pianos/keyboards for beginners’ increased by 20%.
It’s been suggested that the crowd for Elton’s Glastonbury performance was the largest ever seen, and the BBC’s combined audience figures across BBC One and iPlayer confirmed that the still-standing-songsmith had the biggest overnight audience for any Glastonbury headliner.
Commenting on the figures, Head of EMI at Casio, Neil Evans, said: “To see an icon such as Sir Elton play out his final ever UK performance at Glastonbury was a special moment, yet to see how many people tuned in and have been inspired to play the piano is even more remarkable.
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“Sir Elton is a piano-playing legend and off the back of his performance, we’ve seen increased interest in a range of our pianos and keyboards, especially for beginners. Who knows, his Glastonbury show may have just inspired a new generation of Sir Elton Johns.”
Piano sales have been buoyant for a while now, with lockdown, YouTube tutorials and social media all helping to bring the instrument back into favour. Show’s such as Channel 4’s The Piano, which saw members of the public unknowingly having their skills judged as they played public pianos at train stations, have also helped.
Elton John’s trip to Glastonbury was one of the final stops on his Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour, which concluded in Stockholm this weekend. Closing the show, he thanked fans and told them that they would remain in his "head, heart and soul".
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