The business of musicians in India and the economics of cultural capital

It’s music festival season in India and independent musicians are lining up on stages across the country. But beneath the celebration lies a quieter reality. The business of musicians in India today is shaped less by raw talent and more by economics. To secure a slot at most Indian music festivals, an artist or band is expected to arrive with original compositions, a visible audience, and proof of momentum that extends well beyond the live set. 

“Released music gives the curator or promoter of the festival a good sense of the musician’s sound, aesthetic, potentially even the audiences,” says musician Avik Roy, 35, who is also Vice President at Teamwork Arts, heading Festivals & Artist Management.“Until you get your releases out there and build a following, you are unlikely to get anything more than an opening slot.”

What curators increasingly assess is not just a musician’s performance, but their trajectory.  “[We look at an] an artist’s overall momentum and growth over a defined period, usually across a year—where they’ve been performing, whether they’re being spotted or invited to other music festivals, how their listenership and engagement are evolving, and the visibility and credibility they’re building within the scene,” says Adnan Ahmed, 33, Head of Artist Management- Swordfish and Echoes of Earth music festival. 

In such a system, festivals then function as both platform and filter for most independent musicians in India. Visibility matters, but so does consistency. This shift has changed how artists approach their sets. Limiting cover songs to two or three tracks is no longer just a creative choice but a strategic one. “A set list is shaped around the journey you want the audience to experience,” says vocalist Tanishque, a Hindustani classical-trained singer based in Mumbai. “The more original music you have, the more freedom you have to design that arc. Everything flows from the emotional impact you want to leave behind.” 

Why original music now determines festival slots

For many artists, music festivals in India remain the most organic way to perform original material and find new listeners. “Festivals are where artists first test unreleased originals, find their audience, and take their next step forward,”says Naman Pugalia, Chief Business Officer - Live Events, BookMyShow. “As festivals have evolved, they’ve become platforms not just for performance, but for discovery and artistic identity. As a result, most programming naturally leans towards artists who are beginning to define their sound through original music. Even a small body of released work helps programmers understand an artist’s intent, direction, and potential longevity.” 

At the same time, promoters and organisers are increasingly looking beyond sound alone. “Promoters look at multiple metrics—including past ticket sales, streaming numbers, engagement, and social media following because they have costs to cover,” says Natasha Mahtani, founder of Origin Management, Mumbai. “They need artists who can contribute to the turnout.” 

Roy notes that follower counts on social media are an unreliable metric. Artists with only a few hundred followers often draw stronger crowds than those with tens of thousands. This, he explains, is usually because their audiences are built around original music rather than visibility driven by covers.. “Some of the bigger Instagram influencers build a following by putting out covers,” he adds. 

“I’ve heard of demands from organisers towards bands and find it absurd. An organiser is promoting a band because their sound fits into the festival aesthetic and if that band has a following, you hope they’ll be able to draw those audiences in. But, to have built in clauses for bands to bring in a certain amount of audience doesn’t make sense. Most serious festivals don’t do this,” clarifies Roy. 

“Festival managers and promoters hire five-six bands that bring in maximum footfalls, and then fill up their roster with lesser-known ones,” observes Delhi-based saxophone player Abhay Sharma, whose funk band The Revisit Project does two sets: original music, and a Hindi film composers’ tribute cover set.  

The real cost of releasing original music in India

For artists trying to build original catalogues, the financial burden begins long before a festival stage. India isn’t a country where indie musicians are economically thriving, especially those who are still just a few releases in. Releasing original music also translates to spending money.

"Until you (an artist) gets your releases out there and build a following, you are unlikely to get anything more than an opening slot” - Avik Roy

“If an artist has a home studio, with DAW (Digital Audio Workstation—the central software for modern music recording that is used to record, edit, mix, and produce audio)—and space to record at home, then they just need to get it mixed and mastered by a mixing engineer,” explains Ritnika Nayan, owner of music consultancy firm Music Gets Me High (MGMH), who recently worked on the Mumbai edition of Lollapalooza 2025.  

A good engineer to mix and master a song can cost anywhere between ₹10,000 to ₹50,000 per song. Studio charges range between ₹1,000 to ₹3,000. “If a band takes five hours to record a song, which is pretty standard, then that’s about ₹10,000 for just recording the song,” says Sharma. 

“Programming the drums is the most expensive among all the instruments. Getting a session musician to play for your song costs about ₹500/hour for someone who is new and can go upto ₹20,000,” says Nayan.

Costs rise further with complexity. “A pop or rock song (three to four minutes per song) with guitars, drums, keys, and voice could vary between ₹17,500 to ₹ 24,500 depending on how locked in the arrangements and melody are,” says Girjashanker Vohra, 50, co-founder and owner of Depot 48 and Depot Records. “A finished song (recording, mixing, and mastering) would probably cost an average of ₹35,000.” 

The cost for session musicians vary widely based on skill level and even the kind of instruments used. “For instance, saxophone or horn players, that are rare, cost more, starting at ₹15,000,” adds Aronjoy Das, 29, a Gurugram-based singer-songwriter. The cost increases while releasing an EP or an album. 

Accompanying videos are another additional cost. “In the mid-1990s, it was possible to produce a colour-corrected broadcast-ready music video for around ₹75,000. Since then, expectations, techniques, and post-production capabilities have expanded significantly, widening the cost range,” says Vohra. 

“Rather than one expensive video, you can have 30 shorter clips that work well on Instagram. With just an iPhone, you can still make a video for ₹15,000,” says Nayan. In a Reels-obsessed world, a music video works more as a marketing tool. “It’s a piece of content for social media that can lead to the success of a song. But, every song need not have a  video,” says Das. 

However, not everyone agrees that accompanying visuals are essential. “Some [songs] are complete with just the music and strong artwork. Whether a song needs visuals should depend on the artistic intent and whether the visuals add any meaning or context,” says Tanishque. 

“If the lyrics and the story are conveyed well, listeners can create their own visuals and imagine the song differently. Sometimes the voice alone is enough. But, a music video can also give audiences a peek into the artist’s mind,” says Taba Chake, fingerstyle guitarist and singer from Arunachal Pradesh, who made his debut in 2016 with the EP Bond with Nature. 

Marketing, playlists, and the cost of visibility

Marketing has become one of the most unavoidable expenses in how musicians make money in India today. Social media, targeted ads, meme pages, and fan communities all form part of the promotional ecosystem.

“If there’s a choice between production or marketing support being provided by a label, it might be worthwhile to use the label’s marketing muscle”  - Girjashankar Vohra

“It depends on how well you know your audience and how they consume your content,” says Mahtani. “Some artists prefer a short, high-impact promotional window—just a few days before release—which works well in today’s fast-scrolling, short-attention-span world. Others like to tease music months in advance, testing reactions and building anticipation organically. With albums, you start earlier, so that visuals, narratives, and sound all feel part of the same world.”.

Sharma advises new artists to prioritise promotion.  “Have a smaller window between your releases, something I wouldn’t have suggested in 2019.” 

“Ideally, musicians should have 50 per cent of what the product costs kept aside for marketing,” explains Soutrik Chakraborty, frontman and songwriter for Mumbai band Fox in the Garden. Digital marketing agencies typically charge a percentage of ad spend, while offline campaigns can range from ₹30,000 to ₹60,000. Playlist placement has also become a marketing tool, especially mood-based playlists that drive passive listening.

“Playlisting helps with discoverability,” says Mahtani, though not always with developing parallel audience growth. Some user-generated playlists charge for a placement, a practice Nayan says can push tracks towards milestone numbers like 50,000 streams. 

Playlists come with their own risks. Algorithmic playlists are often triggered once after a track builds enough organic traction, usually through user-generated playlists. Das’s single Lost (2020), for example, crossed 355,000 streams on Spotify before it was picked up algorithmically, following an Instagram ad campaign that cost between ₹15,000 and ₹20,000 on the app. “The cost per view was lower, and the reach was more relevant,” says Das. 

Yet composing with playlists in mind can narrow creative choices. Sharma warns that chasing virality often leads to formulaic music built around predictable hooks, while songs with greater dynamic range or complexity are less likely to find space in playlist ecosystems. 

There is also a structural limitation. Playlists stick to a certain theme of sounds for an hour or two, which reduces diversity for listeners. “Playlist streams don't actually translate to audience growth as much as you think, because a majority of Indian playlist listening habits are passive. The active listenership algorithm, which is completely different, is tailored to singular needs and wants,” says Chakraborty.

Labels, managers, and who carries the risk

As the business of musicians in India has grown more complex, the role of record labels has shifted sharply over the last decade. Where labels once invested in building artists from the ground up, they now expect musicians to arrive with a catalogue, a ready audience, and measurable momentum in place.

“When record labels and artist management come into the picture, they will tell a musician how to make their songs more business-friendly, because that's their job. They want you to sell tickets and do the best commercially so that they can also make money through it,” says Sharma, whose primary income comes from performing with Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy and Adnan Sami, alongside his work with his band, which played at the Serendipity Arts Festival in Goa in 2025.

“Rather than one expensive video, you can have 30 shorter clips that work well on Instagram. With just an iPhone, you can still make a video for ₹15,000” - Ritnika Nayan. 

When it comes to landing deals, independent musicians in India today are often navigating a fragmented landscape. Distribution agreements, buyouts, advances, and 360-degree deals coexist, each shifting risk differently between artist and label.

Artist management, meanwhile, increasingly involves long-term planning: mapping releases, budgeting production and marketing costs, coordinating distribution, and securing sponsorship or brand partnerships. While managers help translate creative into strategy, they do not always absorb the financial risk.  Financially, labels still hold leverage. “A label might help to find a brand that can offset some costs of the process of recording and releasing the music,” says Vohra. “If there’s a choice between production or marketing support being provided by a label, it might be worthwhile to use the label’s marketing muscle.”

This support especially matters in a country where the music industry has largely been Bollywood-led, and it’s only now that independent musicians are finally breaking through.

Festivals, fees, and the economics of exposure

Despite their visibility, music festivals remain one of the least reliable sources of income in the business of musicians in India. While festivals offer discovery and credibility, they rarely offer financial stability to the artists.

“Most of the money is given to the top guys,” says Sharma. “But bands without virality miss out on the financial aspect of a festival. More than 50 per cent of bands actually settle for a low amount because they just want the exposure at the festival.”

Chake remembers performing covers at cafes in Delhi a decade ago for ₹1,500, occasionally ₹3,000. Today, starting payout may range from  ₹4,000 to ₹5,000 per musician, depending on the venue and format.

Festival economics further complicates matters. “Most musicians are doing landed deals,” explains Nayan. “They get a lump sum amount and figure their travel and stay too within that budget. While private gigs pay more money, college festivals pay less, music festivals even less, and club/ or bar gigs pay the least.” As a result, music festivals in India function less as sustainable income streams and more as strategic investments. They offer reach, credibility, and momentum to the artists, but rarely long-term financial security. 

Even with the constant churn of new releases, the same artists often reappear across festival lineups in the country year after year. Part of this repetition is structural. “Despite so many new musicians on the scene, the ones you see on stage are usually the ones whose music is trending. Or, who the bookers or organisers are: If the same company is organising multiple festivals, there are deals for that—a musician might do one show for half their price, if they get two more shows,”explains Nayan. 

Numbers and finances more than dictate what music audiences listen to. In this environment, singles have become the dominant unit of value. They are easier to market,  easier to pitch, and better suited for playlists, where discovery is built around individual tracks rather than bodies of work. Albums still matter, but they are rarely the entry point. 

Both routes can lead to success. Some artists build scale through frequent single releases, while others focus on albums as long-term statements. “[Prateek] Kuhad has solidified his longevity the way an artist would want their work to be perceived in terms of depth and thematically explore certain ideas and thoughts and expand on them in different ways, musically,” says Das. 

From the listener’s perspective, the experience is different. “Listening to an album is like reading a novel in musical form—it has more depth,” says Chake. The trade-off between depth and visibility remains one of the central tensions in the business of musicians in India. This tension becomes sharper in an ecosystem driven by metrics. “At  the end of the day, music is about listeners rather than followers,” says Tanishque. 

For artists navigating rising costs, limited payouts, and platform-driven expectations, that distinction matters. “Even recording and mixing a song aren’t just technical processes; they demand time, care, and emotional investment. This can’t be measured against money, especially when starting out,” adds Chake. “If a song is created with love and intention, marketing happens naturally. Intention matters more than money. That’s how music travels.”