India’s Orange Economy: Creative Industries Outlook After Budget 2026

India’s ‘Orange Economy’ gains policy momentum in Budget 2026. Explore opportunities across media, AVGC, live events, and creative services for foreign investors.

The growing focus on India’s ‘Orange Economy’, also referred to as the creative economy, reflects a broader policy shift towards services-led, IP-driven growth. Encompassing sectors such as media and entertainment, live events, animation, visual effects, gaming, over-the-top (OTT) platforms, design, publishing, and cultural services, the orange economy leverages creativity, knowledge, and intellectual property (IP) to generate employment, exports, and urban demand.

The Union Budget 2026-27 reinforces this shift, not through direct fiscal incentives, but by prioritizing institutional capacity, regulatory simplification, and talent development, signaling a long-term ecosystem-building approach.

Defining the orange economy: Scope and value drivers

At its core, the orange economy includes activities where creativity, culture, and IP form the primary sources of value creation. Its breadth reflects both traditional cultural strengths and new-age digital capabilities:

Together, these segments form a high-employment, urban-centric services ecosystem with strong export and spillover potential.

Global media and entertainment landscape: Structural shifts

The global media and entertainment (M&E) industry continues to expand amid deep structural transformation. According to a Mordor Intelligence report, the market is estimated at US$3.12 trillion in 2026 and is projected to reach US$3.78 trillion by 2031, reflecting a CAGR of approximately 3.9 percent.

Growth is being driven by:

• A decisive shift from print and linear broadcasting to streaming platforms, connected-TV advertising, and artificial intelligence (AI)-driven content personalization.
• Reallocation of advertising budgets towards addressable, data-led video formats, supported by smartphone saturation, faster 5G networks, and rising smart-TV penetration.
• The emergence of hybrid ad-supported subscription models in mature markets such as North America, even as India, China, and Brazil continue to add new digital consumers at scale.

On the supply side, advances in software-defined production, virtual sets, and automated localization are lowering entry barriers, enabling smaller studios to compete with established players and intensifying competition across the value chain.

India’s media and entertainment sector: Scale and growth dynamics

India’s M&E sector has become a central pillar of the orange economy, spanning broadcasting, digital media, audio-visual production, animation, gaming, advertising, and live entertainment. Industry estimates place the sector’s size at approximately INR 2.5 trillion (US$27.6 billion) in 2024, supported by rising incomes, widespread internet access, and a large, young consumer base.

Key structural trends include:

• Digital media accounts for nearly one-third of total sectoral revenues, driven by OTT platforms and mobile consumption.
• Video subscription revenues of around INR 92 billion (US$1.01 billion) in 2024, reflecting strong OTT adoption.
• Rapid growth in digital advertising, outpacing traditional formats.
• Expansion of export-oriented segments such as animation and VFX, which generated revenues of approximately INR 103 billion (1.13 billion) in 2024, and gaming, which reached an estimated INR 232 billion (US$2.56 billion) in the same year.

Live entertainment rebounded strongly post-pandemic from COVID-19, crossing INR 100 billion (US$1.10 billion) in 2024, while generating spillover benefits for tourism, hospitality, and urban services.

India’s live concert economy: An emerging investment opportunity

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India’s live concert and entertainment segment is rapidly transitioning from a culturally driven activity to a scalable, services-led investment opportunity within the country’s broader orange economy. As outlined in the Economic Survey 2025-26, targeted regulatory reform and institutional support could unlock significant value across live events, tourism, hospitality, infrastructure, and allied urban services.

The sector has already demonstrated strong demand-side resilience. Following a sharp post-pandemic recovery, India’s live entertainment market is supported by rising disposable incomes, a young demographic profile, and increasing consumer preference for experiential spending. This positions live concerts as one of the fastest-growing segments within India’s media and entertainment landscape.

Importantly, the survey positions the concert economy within the orange economy framework, where value creation is driven by IP, creative talent, and brand-led experiences rather than physical assets.

Proven global economics, underpenetrated domestic market

Within the orange economy, live entertainment and the concert economy stand out as high-multiplier, service-intensive activities. Beyond ticket sales, large-scale events generate demand across hospitality, travel, logistics, advertising, media production, and local services.

Global evidence highlights the sector’s economic impact:

1. Live music contributes roughly one-third of global music revenues.
2. In the US, live music supported over 900,000 jobs and generated more than US$130 billion in economic activity.
3. In the UK, music tourism contributed £6.6 billion in 2022.

Across advanced and emerging markets, creative industries contribute between 0.5 percent and over 7 percent of GDP, underscoring their ability to deliver sustained, high-multiplier growth. In India, the organized live events market was valued at approximately INR 208.61 billion (US$2.3 billion) in 2024, growing at around 15 percent annually, with projections indicating a sustained CAGR of 18 percent, outpacing several traditional media segments.

The market, by contrast, remains structurally underpenetrated relative to its population size and consumption potential, creating a clear headroom opportunity for organisers, venue developers, ticketing platforms, sponsors, and financial investors.

Employment, urban spillovers and regional expansion

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The live entertainment ecosystem already supports over 10 million jobs across event management, logistics, hospitality, security, media production, and allied services. A single large-format event can generate 15,000+ direct and indirect employment opportunities, underscoring its strong multiplier effect. Growth is increasingly driven by tier-2 and tier-3 cities, reflecting deeper geographic penetration:

1. Visakhapatnam recorded nearly a fivefold increase in live event footfalls in 2025.
2. Shillong and Guwahati reported growth exceeding 200 percent.
3. Overall consumption across concerts, sports, and theatre rose by approximately 17 percent, with a growing number of consumers travelling across cities for events.

The growing presence of international performers alongside large domestic tours signals increasing market maturity.

Policy direction: Lowering execution risk

One of the most significant barriers to scale, regulatory complexity, is now being actively addressed. The Economic Survey identifies current friction points, including:

• Fragmented approvals requiring 10-15 separate clearances per event
• Limited availability of large-format venues
• Procedural hurdles for foreign artist payments and visas

Policy enablement: Live events development cell (LEDC)

To support structured growth, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has established the Live Events Development Cell (LEDC) as a single-window facilitation mechanism. Constituted in July 2025, the LEDC brings together central and state governments, industry bodies, and major event organizers to:

• Streamline regulatory approvals,
• Coordinate infrastructure development,
• Improve ease of doing business for large-format events.

A joint working group with private stakeholders has also been set up to address infrastructure gaps and venue constraints.

For investors, these measures signal a reduction in execution risk, faster turnaround times, and improved cost predictability, which are critical for underwriting large-format events and multi-city tours.

Strong spillovers and city-level monetization

Live concerts function as high-multiplier economic engines. Beyond ticket revenues, they activate a broad ecosystem encompassing aviation, hotels, food and beverage, local transport, advertising, security, event production, and temporary employment. Cities hosting marquee concerts increasingly view them as tools for destination branding, tourism monetisation, and off-season demand creation.

Recent international concerts in India have demonstrated this potential, generating hundreds of crores in local economic impact over short durations. Such outcomes strengthen the case for municipal partnerships, public–private venue development, and integrated city-event strategies.

Union budget 2026-27: Policy signals for the orange economy

1. Creative industries as a growth lever

Building on the Economic Survey 2025-26, the Budget recognizes the Orange Economy, particularly AVGC, live entertainment, and cultural services, as a high-employment, IP-led growth segment with strong spillovers into tourism and urban services.

A key announcement is support for the Indian Institute of Creative Technologies (IICT), Mumbai, to establish AVGC Content Creator Labs in 15,000 secondary schools and 500 colleges. This reflects a long-term bet on talent creation, addressing the projected requirement of nearly 2 million skilled professionals by 2030.

Budget implication: A supply-side strategy focused on skills and institutional capacity rather than short-term production subsidies.

2. Live entertainment: Regulatory enablement over fiscal incentives

While the 2026 budget does not introduce sector-specific tax incentives, it aligns with ongoing regulatory reforms, including:

• Single-window facilitation through the LEDC,
• Reduction in the number of approvals currently required for live events, often ranging from 10 to 15 separate clearances.

Budget implication: Lower execution risk and greater predictability for organizers and global promoters.

3. Employment, tourism and urban integration

Live entertainment is increasingly embedded within a broader urban and tourism services framework, complementing budget priorities such as city branding, experiential tourism, and heritage monetization.

Budget implication: The sector is being positioned as a catalyst for short-duration, high-impact employment and urban demand.

ALSO READ: Economic Survey of India 2025-26: Growth, Productivity & Investor Signals

Tax and regulatory lens

The budget does not introduce headline tax concessions for M&E but advances a regulatory first, certainty-driven framework.

1. Goods and services tax (GST): Live entertainment remains subject to 18 percent GST, with no rate changes. Organizers must focus on service classification and input tax credit optimization.
2. Income tax: Event promoters remain taxable under standard business provisions; gains arise from scale and reduced friction rather than tax relief.
3. Foreign artists: Payments to foreign performers attract withholding tax (10-20 percent, subject to treaties). While rates remain unchanged, single-window facilitation signals potential easing of visas, FEMA approvals, and payment timelines.
4. AVGC and IP: Standard corporate tax applies, but treaty planning, IP structuring, and transfer pricing remain key considerations as studios integrate into global supply chains.

Strategic takeaway

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The latest buzz on India’s creative industries reflects a decisive shift from subsidy-led growth to ecosystem-building in the orange economy. By investing in creative talent pipelines, simplifying regulatory pathways, and integrating culture with tourism and urban services, the government is laying the groundwork for sustained, scalable growth.

If execution keeps pace with intent, live entertainment, AVGC, and digital content could emerge as meaningful contributors to services exports, employment generation, and India’s global cultural influence over the remainder of the decade.

(US$1 = INR 90.46)

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