Vogue’s Met Gala Livestream Breaks Site Traffic Records for Scale and Time Spent

On Monday night, the fashion publisher and Condé Nast title Vogue broadcast the official livestream of the annual Met Gala on its website, and the resulting traffic broke records for scale and time spent, with triple-digit growth from 2019 numbers. The website received 8.2 million unique views, with time spent sitting at 30.5 minutes and 24.5 minutes on Met content exclusively, according to the publisher, which didn't share its time spent average. The Vogue homepage saw 15 times more direct traffic during the Met Gala than its daily average. On social media, Met content from Vogue generated 32 million views on TikTok and 74 million impressions on Twitter within 24 hours, according to the publisher's numbers. Overall, the publisher drew 192.6 million views across all social platforms. The Vogue livestream itself garnered 15 million views across all platforms, with 54 million minutes watched in the first 24 hours. In addition to airing on the Vogue U.S. website, the livestream also appeared on 11 other Vogues globally and six separate Condé Nast properties. Vogue more than doubled its Met-related advertising revenue compared to 2019, although the publisher declined to provide specific figures. ‘This is About Thought Leadership:’ How Washington Post Live Found Staying Power "If this year's success has made one thing clear, it's that our audiences have an insatiable appetite for all things Met Gala—and who can blame them?” said Pam Drucker Mann, the global chief revenue officer, president, U.S. revenue. “As we look to 2022, we have an incredible opportunity to continue this momentum, bringing our audiences and our advertising partners even closer to the action on fashion's biggest night." Monetizing the livestream In years prior, Vogue has broadcast a livestream of the gala as part of a partnership, teaming up with Facebook in one instance and the Metropolitan Museum of Art itself in another, but this year marked its first time undertaking the task entirely on its own. The effort required coordination across the entire Vogue team, including on-site staff and a dedicated ballroom in the One World Trade Center to streamline the capture and distribution of real-time photography. Vogue monetized the broadcast through two exclusive partnerships: Audi, which is the official electric vehicle partner of the Met Gala, with Don Julio on board as a sponsor. The two brands received exclusive pre-roll ad space across Vogue’s owned and operated platforms, Twitter and any syndications. The publisher also created a co-branded video with Audi profiling two emerging designers who attended the gala. Condé Nast first floated its concept to add programming around live events, such as the Met Gala, the Oscars and the Super Bowl, at its NewFronts pitch in May. Following the presentation, the Met Gala package sold to Omnicom Media Group on the spot. ‘A moment to celebrate’ Last year, the pandemic forced the star-studded fundraiser to cancel for the first time in its 73-year history. The gala experienced a heightened interest this year, as a result, said Anna-Lisa Yabsley, the global head of digital strategy at Vogue, which translated into its record-breaking web and social traffic. “It really felt like a moment to celebrate America, American designers and the wider resilience of the community,” Yabsley said. “We knew that our audience was eager to have that front-row seat and feel as though they were a part of it.” Featuring the theme American Independence, the gala welcomed hundreds of elaborately costumed celebrities as they posed on the red carpet. The annual event serves as a fundraiser for the Metropolitan Museum Costume Institute, and its 2021 iteration raised a record-breaking $16.75 million for the Institute. This year, for the first time ever, the Institute has a two-part theme, with the second theme opening in May 2022 under the guidance of head curator Andrew Bolton. The broadcast partnership between Vogue and the Met Gala is the latest chapter in a long saga of collaboration between the two. Anna Wintour, the editor-in-chief of Vogue Magazine and global chief content officer for Condé Nast, has operated as chairwoman of the event since 1995. In homage to the legacy of work Wintour has dedicated to the gala, in 2014 the Met named the wing of its museum that houses the Costume Institute the Anna Wintour Costume Center.