The Events and Entertainment Management Association (EEMA) earlier this year unveiled its Vision 2030 roadmap at a press conference in Chennai, ahead of EEMAGINE 2026, the association’s flagship annual convention. The roadmap came at a time when India’s experience economy is emerging as one of the country’s fastest-growing sectors, driven by rising demand for live entertainment, destination weddings, business events, exhibitions and cultural tourism.
India’s experience economy, spanning live events, weddings, MICE and cultural experiences, was valued at approximately $32.2 billion in 2024 and is projected to nearly double to $59.2 billion by 2029–30, growing at 16–18% annually, nearly twice the global average. Yet the opportunity remains largely untapped: India is home to 18% of the world’s population but contributes only 2–4% of the global experience economy, a gap EEMA calls the industry’s single biggest growth runway.
Within India, the organised events industry already contributes an estimated Rs. 3.5–4 lakh crore to the economy and supports more than one crore jobs, a figure EEMA expects to nearly double over the next five to six years. Weddings remain the largest single contributor, with India’s overall wedding economy, organised and unorganised combined, estimated at approximately ₹125 lakh crore, making it the country’s fourth-largest industry at roughly 10 million weddings a year. Live events alone account for a market of over Rs. 2 lakh crore, growing at approximately 15% annually.
India staged more than 34,000 live concerts and shows in 2025 alone, with Coldplay’s Ahmedabad concerts generating an estimated ₹641 crore in economic impact, according to EY-Parthenon and BookMyShow Live research. The association noted that a single large-scale event ripples across at least nine sectors from hospitality and aviation to retail and logistics — supporting hundreds of thousands of livelihoods, and that the Government of India is itself the country’s single largest spender on events, issuing over 3,000 government event tenders a year. Today, the association represents more than 4,000 event companies nationally, delivering everything from Republic Day to the Mahakumbh to global summits.
Beyond direct event revenues, the industry creates significant multiplier effects across hospitality, aviation, logistics, retail, transport, food and beverage, production, technology and tourism. According to the association, every large-format event generates economic activity across multiple sectors, making the experience economy an increasingly important contributor to India’s broader growth story.
Vision 2030 is designed to work in step with the Government of India’s own ambition for the sector. The Ministry of Information & Broadcasting’s Live Events Development
Cell uniting 9 Central Ministries, 6 States and 12 industry members, has set a target of 15–20 million additional jobs by 2030. The association also welcomed the Ministry of Tourism’s ‘Wed in India’ campaign and confirmed it has submitted a MICE strategy draft to the Ministry of Commerce via WAVES, as part of a wider push for single-window clearances and simplified approvals across states.
The association said that creating a more predictable regulatory framework through uniform approvals and stronger Centre-State collaboration would be critical to attracting more international conventions, concerts, sporting events and destination weddings to India.
Vision 2030 lays out EEMA’s long-term ambition of positioning India as the “Experience Capital of the World”, with a focus on strengthening the country’s leadership across destination weddings, live entertainment, cultural experiences, international conventions and experience-led innovation through policy reforms, infrastructure development, talent creation and technology adoption.
During EEMAGINE 2026, EEMA also unveilled India’s first socio-economic impact report on the events industry, developed in collaboration with KPMG and Mastercard, providing a comprehensive assessment of the sector’s contribution to the country’s economy and employment.
MediaNews4U.com caught up with Samit Garg, President, EEMA
Q. What makes EEMA confident India’s experience economy can nearly double by 2030?
The confidence comes from structural tailwinds, not optimism. India has the world’s youngest large population, rising discretionary incomes, deepening digital and physical infrastructure, and a cultural appetite for gathering that is almost unmatched globally. The base is already growing at strong double digits, and we’re seeing demand expand well beyond the metros.
When you combine that organic momentum with the policy support now taking shape — the Ministry of Tourism’s Wed in India push, the Live Events Development Cell — the trajectory to roughly $59 billion by 2030 is ambitious but grounded. Vision 2030 is our framework to make sure the ecosystem keeps pace with that demand.
Q. India has 18% of the world’s population but only a 2–4% share of the global experience economy. Why is the figure so low, and is a mindset shift needed?
You’ve identified exactly the gap Vision 2030 is built to close. The low share isn’t a demand problem — it’s a structural one. For years events were treated as a cost line rather than an economic driver, so the sector grew without the industry status, financing access, or policy framework that its scale deserves.
So yes, a mindset shift is needed — from the government, from financial institutions, and frankly from within the industry itself. We need to see experiences as an economic engine that touches tourism, employment, and soft power. Closing that 2–4% to a share that reflects our population and cultural strength is the single biggest opportunity in front of us.
Q. With no industry status and no single event policy, what will EEMA do to secure government recognition — so companies can access loans and tax benefits?
This is our top advocacy priority. We are engaging with central and state governments to establish formal industry status for live events and experiences, which is the gateway to institutional financing, tax parity, and easier compliance. In parallel we’re working toward a coherent event policy — including exploring single-window clearance mechanisms in select states to cut the approval burden that slows every project down.
We’re doing this in partnership with government rather than in opposition to it; the Live Events Development Cell and Wed in India show the intent is already there. Our job is to convert that intent into concrete recognition that a member company can take to a bank.
Q. Weddings are the largest segment. How can it professionalise without losing its cultural feel?
The cultural feel is the product — no one wants to standardise that away, and we wouldn’t. Professionalisation here means the invisible layer: contracts, insurance, safety, vendor accountability, transparent pricing, trained crews. Get that right and the culture is actually protected better, not diluted, because families get reliability and artisans and vendors get a fairer, more sustainable livelihood.
The Wed in India campaign is a real opportunity to position the country as the global destination-wedding capital, and professionalism is what will let us capture that at scale while keeping every tradition intact.
Q. Jobs are expected to nearly double in 5–6 years. What skills will young people need most?
A mix of creative and technical. On the technical side: production and stagecraft, AV and live-event technology, safety and crowd management, sustainability practices, and increasingly AI and data tools for personalisation and logistics. On the human side: project management, client handling, and the ability to work across the full ecosystem — hospitality, logistics, marketing. The sector’s advantage is that it rewards both the artist and the engineer.
Skilling is a core pillar of Vision 2030 precisely because the demand for talent will outrun supply if we don’t build structured training pathways now.
Q. Live events grew strongly in 2025. What needs to change for smaller cities to host more shows?
Three things: infrastructure, approvals, and confidence. Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities need venues, power, connectivity, and safety infrastructure that can handle scale. They need the same streamlined, predictable approval process a metro offers — which comes back to our push for single-window clearances. And they need promoters to have the confidence that demand and logistics will hold up outside the big four.
The demand is clearly already there; hosting EEMAGINE in Chennai is itself a statement that the next phase of growth is regional.
Q. Can MICE and cultural tourism sustain 16–18% growth?
We believe that both segments have that headroom. India is underpenetrated in international MICE relative to its capacity, and cultural tourism plays directly to our deepest competitive advantage — no other country has our density of festivals, heritage, and living traditions.
Sustaining that growth depends on convention infrastructure, ease of doing business, and coordinated promotion abroad. The pieces are moving in the right direction, and MICE and cultural tourism are exactly where Vision 2030 sees India differentiating globally.
Q. Coldplay’s Ahmedabad concerts created a large economic impact. How do we get more international acts to pick India over Dubai or Singapore?
That impact number is the argument in itself — it shows a single tour can move hotels, aviation, retail, and local employment at once. To win more of these acts consistently we need three things: world-class venue infrastructure across multiple cities, a predictable and fast clearance process so a global promoter isn’t gambling on approvals, and competitive economics.
Dubai and Singapore win on ease and certainty, not on audience — our audience is larger and more passionate.
If we match them on the operating environment, the scale of the Indian market makes us the obvious choice. That’s a core focus of the policy work under Vision 2030.
Q. Government tenders run to thousands a year. How can EEMA’s member companies make that process easier and faster?
EEMA can act as the bridge between government and industry — standardising tender formats, bringing transparency and fair qualification criteria, and helping agencies tap a vetted pool of professional members rather than reinventing the wheel each time.
A more structured, standardised process benefits everyone: government gets reliable execution and better value, and members get a fairer, faster route to public projects. This is one of the practical, near-term ways our collective scale creates value.
Q. What will make Vision 2030 real?
Execution and partnership. A roadmap only matters if it produces industry status, a workable event policy, financing access, and skilling pathways — and those come from sustained collaboration between EEMA, government, and financial institutions, not from a single announcement.
What will make it real is measurable progress each year against those pillars, and members holding themselves to a higher professional standard so the sector earns the recognition it’s asking for.
Q. The roadmap launched before EEMAGINE 2026. What are the top three actions members must take this year?
First, raise the professional bar — adopt proper contracts, safety, insurance, and transparent practices, because credibility is what unlocks industry status. Second, invest in talent — build and train teams now, because the skills gap is the biggest near-term constraint.
Third, engage — participate in EEMA’s advocacy, share data, and speak with one industry voice, because government recognition follows a sector that shows up organised and united. EEMAGINE 2026 in Chennai is where we turn that alignment into direction.
Q. Events touch hospitality, aviation, retail and more. How should other industries partner with EEMA?
They should see events as demand-generation, not an ancillary. A single major event fills hotels, flights, restaurants, and retail simultaneously — so the natural partnerships are joint packaging, shared infrastructure investment, and coordinated promotion, especially around large concerts, weddings, and MICE.
We’d welcome hospitality, aviation, tourism boards, and retail working with EEMA on integrated offerings, because the growth we’re projecting is only fully captured when the whole ecosystem moves together. That’s the spirit of Vision 2030 — the experience economy lifts everything around it.
