David Bowie turned down the offer to sign off Sunday night's Olympic Games closing ceremony with a performance of Heroes, one of several high-profile acts who passed up the chance to perform in front of a global TV audience of hundreds of millions at the finale of London 2012.

Organisers of the £15m show had also hoped to persuade the Rolling Stones, Kate Bush and the Sex Pistols to appear in what was intended to be a history of British music. Even the Who, who did close the Games with a medley ending with My Generation, turned down the request to play twice, according to industry sources. But a decision by the band to announce a US tour in July swayed them, given the scale of the promotional opportunity.

The three-hour show featuring Elbow, Take That and another Spice Girls reunion was watched by an average of 23.2m viewers, making it marginally more popular than the £27m opening ceremony two weeks earlier. Viewing peaked at 26.3m on the night, although the event, which garnered a more mixed reception than Danny Boyle's show, would have been helped by its Sunday night slot, when people are more likely to be at home.

As for Bowie, the 65-year-old has not toured since 2006, and it was always an ambitious request to try to persuade him to participate, even if Heroes was used as an unofficial anthem for Team GB during the Games. Although he closely monitors his own press coverage, Bowie, now based in New York, repeatedly turns down requests to perform or appear in public.

Fans of the singer had to make do with a segment in the middle of the "Symphony for British Music" in which Fashion was played against a catwalk sequence featuring Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell – one of several recorded sections which suggested that hoped-for performers would not appear.

Six months ago, artist managers and other music industry executives were given a presentation by concert producer Kim Gavin and film composer David Arnold of ambitious plans to showcase the history of British pop music from the 1960s. At that stage, there were few confirmed participants other than an agreement to play John Lennon's Imagine, which formed a centrepiece of the programme.

Kate Bush was among those Gavin and Arnold hoped would appear, and there were rumours in the industry that she had agreed to perform. However, Bush too is reluctant to appear in public. Organisers agreed to play a remix of Running Up That Hill, and the singer released a statement on her website on Monday praising a "brilliant show".

Backstage on the night, there was surprise that George Michael was allowed to perform his new single, White Light, which was released on Monday , in addition to solo classic Freedom. Island Records, his record company, hastily deleted a tweet inviting viewers to buy the song and the single did not make the top 10 on iTunes on Monday.

One manager keen to support the event was Simon Fuller, the impresario behind the Spice Girls, David Beckham and Andy Murray. Some of the Spice Girls were particularly reluctant to perform at an event that despite all its apparent expense was still felt to be staged at minimal cost, but Fuller persuaded them, helpfully keeping the quintet in the public eye a few months ahead of the opening of the musical Viva Forever, which is based on their songs.

Fuller, who was in the royal box on Sunday night, also saw another of his acts, singer Annie Lennox, perform Little Bird. But there was little sign of his rival svengali, Simon Cowell, with only one X Factor act, One Direction, performing at the event.

HMV said it expected sales of music by John Lennon, the Spice Girls and Elbow – who performed One Day Like This – to soar by up to seven-fold this week. A compilation of the night's music, A Symphony for British Music, went to number two on the iTunes album chart, behind Now That's What I Call Music! 82.