India’s Orange Economy Does Not Need Another Stage. It Needs a Buying System.
- Ritwik Joshi
- Aug 22
- 5 min read
Today, 22 August 2026, The August Fest in Hyderabad is explicitly gathering art, fashion, food and storytelling under the banner of the Orange Economy. Earlier this month, CultureCon in Mumbai positioned itself as the place where India's creative industry gets organised—where practitioners discuss clients, pricing, studios and staying in business.
Both impulses are valuable. Creative work needs rooms where people recognise one another as an industry. But India now risks confusing the visibility of the creative economy with its infrastructure. A stage can make creativity look important for a day. A buying system makes creative work economically legible all year.
My argument is blunt: India does not primarily need another celebration of creators. It needs more competent buyers of creative work—brands, institutions, developers, hospitality groups, city bodies and cultural organisations that know how to commission, price, contract, credit and reuse ideas without destroying their value.
The numbers are already too large for informal buying
A February 2026 Government of India backgrounder valued India's media and entertainment sector at approximately ₹2.5 trillion in 2024. It estimated annual output at roughly ₹3 lakh crore and more than 10 million direct and indirect livelihoods. Digital media accounted for around one-third of sector revenue; gaming was approximately ₹232 billion, animation and VFX ₹103 billion, and live entertainment more than ₹100 billion.
The same government projection places the total sector at ₹3,067 billion by 2027, up from ₹2,502 billion in 2024—around 7% annual growth. Out-of-home media is projected to rise from ₹59 billion to ₹79 billion over that period, while live events move from ₹101 billion to ₹167 billion.
The creator layer is expanding even faster. An ISB–Hashfame study using Qoruz data reported growth from about 0.96 million Indian creators in 2020 to 4.12 million in 2025. Sixty-six percent now come from non-metro markets. The non-metro creator base grew 6.4 times, against 2.6 times in metros, while average engagement increased from 1.8% to 7.2%.
These figures describe supply, attention and sector value. They do not prove stable creator income. In fact, ISB's conclusion is that the next phase depends less on adding participants and more on improving the quality of economic opportunity.
The weak link is the brief
Indian creative work is often purchased through a broken sequence. A buyer asks for “something innovative,” withholds the budget, invites several unpaid routes, compresses strategy and execution into one fee, treats usage rights as permanent ownership, and measures success after the fact with whatever numbers are easiest to obtain.
This is not only unfair to creators. It is bad business for buyers. Ambiguous rights make future use risky. Unpriced revisions reward indecision. Unclear attribution damages relationships. Vague outcomes make procurement compare suppliers by presentation theatre rather than fit.
The result is a paradox: public language celebrates intellectual property while everyday commissioning behaves as if ideas are abundant, interchangeable and free until produced.
Festivals should contain markets, not just marketplaces
A creator bazaar can sell objects. A serious creative market sells capability. Buyers should arrive with live, budgeted problems: a hospital needs a multilingual wayfinding pilot; a mall needs a repeatable cultural programme; a beauty brand needs a regional product-education format; a city museum needs a youth membership system.
The creator does not pitch an entire campaign for free. They respond to a diagnostic session, a paid prototype or a tightly scoped commission. The event publishes the decision timeline, fee band, rights expectation and named decision-maker.
This turns networking into transaction design. It also changes who can participate. A non-metro studio cannot afford endless speculative travel and unpaid decks. A transparent paid pathway makes geography less punitive.
A speculative proposal: India Creative Buying Week
India Creative Buying Week is a proposal, not an existing event or government initiative. It would be a distributed commissioning programme rather than another festival. Participating brands and institutions publish small, real briefs across design, advertising, spatial experience, typography, cultural programming and digital products.
Every brief must disclose a budget band, decision criteria, usage period, revision limit, payment schedule and whether the buyer wants strategy, execution or both. Applications are short portfolios and a relevant point of view—not speculative finished campaigns.
Shortlisted teams receive a paid discovery fee. One team receives a paid prototype commission. Rights transfer only for the chosen work and agreed use; unselected ideas remain with their creators. Regional-language briefs are judged with language expertise rather than translated after selection.
The public layer is not a winner announcement. It is a library of anonymised buying lessons: which briefs attracted the right talent, where scope failed, what payment terms improved participation and how buyers evaluated originality without demanding free work.
Five changes buyers can make immediately
First, put a budget range in the brief. Creative ambition without financial boundaries wastes everyone's time. Second, separate selection from free production: choose capability through relevant evidence, then pay for exploration. Third, define usage—channels, territories and duration—before negotiating price. Fourth, name the decision structure so feedback does not arrive as anonymous committee taste. Fifth, measure both business movement and cultural quality; not everything important is a click, but everything commissioned should have an intended effect.
Procurement teams should also maintain a reusable roster that records language capability, regional knowledge, production scale, accessibility expertise and rights preferences. A searchable buying memory is more valuable than repeatedly asking the same five agencies for emergency credentials.
Why this matters for brands
The best Indian creative advantage is not cheaper production. It is the ability to work with more languages, rituals, retail behaviours, media ecosystems and material traditions than most centralised brand systems know how to process. That advantage disappears when procurement forces every idea into one generic deck and one national template.
Better buying does not mean less commercial discipline. It means more: clearer scope, cleaner rights, evidence-based selection, faster decisions and fewer unpaid detours. It makes originality investable.
FAQs
What is the Orange Economy?
It describes economic activity whose value comes primarily from creativity, culture, technology and intellectual property, including media, design, gaming, entertainment and digital content.
Are festivals and conferences unnecessary?
No. They build identity, learning and networks. The argument is that their economic value grows when they also create transparent, paid commissioning pathways.
How can a small brand improve creative procurement?
Start with one brief that states the problem, audience, decision-maker, budget range, timeline, deliverables, revision limit, success measures and usage rights. Pay separately when shortlisted teams are asked to develop original routes.
Is India Creative Buying Week real?
No. It is a speculative opportunity proposed here to demonstrate how the creative economy could convert attention into fairer transactions.
Disclosure: This commentary represents Ritwik Joshi's opinion. India Creative Buying Week is an independent speculative proposal by Afternoon and does not describe an existing commission, event or government programme.
If your brand or institution wants better Indian creative work but the brief, buying model or rights structure keeps producing generic responses, send Afternoon one recent brief. We can diagnose the commissioning system before another pitch begins.
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