Economic Survey 2025-26: Govt wants to squeeze more out of India’s ‘orange economy’

Economic Survey 2025-26: When Coldplay performed to sold out shows in India, new avenues appeared to have opened up for India’s ‘Orange Economy’. And then came the actual realisation when artists like Bryan Adams, Linkin Park, Post Malone, Enrique Iglesias lined up to perform in the country, and more artists like John Mayer, Calvin Harris, DJ Snake, The Lumineers, Dream Theatre queued up still. 

The government’s great plan now is to squeeze more out of the ‘Orange Economy’.

For the uninitiated, the ‘Orange Economy’ refers to the artistic side of the economy, driven by the arts and intellectual property, artistic expression, cultural content, and not from physical goods. The content economy, as India seems to have grasped delightfully, is the polestar. 

Content economy comprises large-scale live music, entertainment events and its associated value chains that include ticketing, hospitality, travel, logistics, media production, advertising and local services.

The Economic Survey 2025-26 stated that “live concerts are high-multiplier, services-intensive activities, generating economic value well beyond ticket sales by supporting tourism, employment and urban services”.

Live concerts account for about 1/3rd of total music revenues. For example, in the US concerts generated over $130 billion and supported more than 900,000 jobs in 2019. And then in the UK, music tourism alone contributed $8.1 billion in 2022, accounting for 0.3 per cent of the GDP. 

Concerts are short-duration tourism demand amplifiers, and creator of jobs across sectors like event operations, logistics, hospitality, security, media, and particularly for people and creative professionals.

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In India, the concert economy is nascent but scaling. The key driver? India’s young population. Add to that rising incomes, digital ticketing platforms and improving urban infrastructure. 

The flipside is the lack of impressionable live event venues in India, as well as restrictions on the foreign payments that can be made to international artists. 

The Economic Survey suggested opening up heritage monuments for such events and facilitating the visa and foreign exchange permissions for foreign performers and artists. It also suggested reducing red tape. As many as 10-15 clearances are required currently, which the Ministry of I&B wants to bring down to just one, including from state governments. 

“With appropriate facilitation and integration into tourism and city branding strategies, the concert economy can become a meaningful driver of growth for M&E, tourism and allied services,” said the survey.