Artists inflate their fees, festivals hide their losses, sponsors spin reach numbers, platforms mask payouts, and the most unspoken truth about music right now is that almost nobody is honest about the economics holding it together.
Take artists: it’s common to hear a headline number for a show fee — “X lakhs” or “X dollars” — that doesn’t actually reflect reality. Behind the curtain, the figure is often padded with conditions: free travel, afterparty appearances, or merchandise guarantees. In some cases, it’s a bluff, shaved down in private negotiations, while the inflated figure becomes the one repeated in the industry, and the perception of value becomes currency. In electronic music, promoters have warned that spiraling fees are threatening the very survival of smaller circuits.
Then there are the festivals. Every year, we see press releases about “record-breaking sales” or “sold-out” events, but rarely a transparent breakdown of what it costs to put the event on. Production, security, logistics, artist travel, insurance — the overheads are massive. The narrative is always one of growth and success, because admitting losses would puncture the myth. The truth is, many festivals only survive because brand money or government subsidies plug the gaps, and some run at outright deficits, hoping perception alone keeps them relevant.
Sponsors, meanwhile, are complicit. Post-campaign reports are filled with words like “potential reach” and “engaged impressions”— numbers that look glossy on a PDF but don’t hold up to scrutiny. Passive scrolls, duplicated users, recycled posts — they all get bundled into the figure. Brands know this, but few demand genuine accountability. Everyone is incentivized to play along: the artist gets a headline, the brand gets a slide deck, and nobody checks whether the campaign actually converted fans or sold anything.
And then there are the platforms — the least transparent players of all. Spotify’s Discovery Mode, for instance, asks artists to accept a 30 per cent royalty cut in exchange for more algorithmic placement. Critics have called it “a form of payola.” Streaming farms inflate numbers at scale, with some estimates suggesting up to 10 percent of global plays are fake. In the U.S., the Mechanical Licensing Collective has been accused of allowing duplicate registrations and weak anti-fraud systems that divert royalties away from rightful creators. And worldwide, artists remain frustrated: surveys show seven in ten are dissatisfied with streaming payouts.
So why does everyone keep quiet? Partly because opacity has been normalized. Contracts have always been complex, royalty statements unreadable, backend clauses hidden. Asking questions gets you branded as naïve or difficult. Promoters and labels wield more leverage, and artists risk losing deals by pushing too hard. Even managers burn out under the weight of constantly negotiating in a fog. The safer choice is to smile, nod, and repeat the official line.
And in a market like India, where the industry is still finding its shape, perception is often treated as reality. Looking successful matters more than being successful, because hype creates leverage: it gets you booked, sponsored, or playlisted. We’re stuck in an attention economy where clout can outweigh craft, and where the illusion of momentum is often valued more than tangible, sustainable growth.
But silence has a cost. If artists, promoters, sponsors, and platforms all operate on inflated or obscured numbers, how do we measure what’s actually sustainable? What does “success” even mean if the economics are fiction? The industry keeps dressing itself up as healthy, but under the makeup, it’s riddled with contradictions.
The real fix isn’t glamorous — but it’s necessary. Festivals and promoters should provide itemized post-event reports to artists and sponsors, not just press releases. These reports should cover actual ticket sales versus comps, production and logistics costs, sponsor deliverables, and the net profit or loss. A handful of independent promoters in Europe have started trialing this as part of their artist contracts; there’s no reason India or North America shouldn’t follow suit. Governments can mandate transparency codes like the UK’s 2024 initiative on music streaming. These codes require labels, publishers, and platforms to share clearer royalty statements, provide accessible contract summaries, and disclose how revenues are split between different rights holders. Platforms should explore user-centric payout models that align royalties with what individuals actually listen to, instead of the current pooled system. Strengthening metadata systems would plug the billions lost each year to duplicate claims and unmatched royalties. Brands, meanwhile, should require third-party audits of campaign performance rather than rely on “potential reach” reports.
Artists and managers also need collective leverage. In the U.S. and Europe, unions such as the American Federation of Musicians (AFM), the American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA), and the United Musicians and Allied Workers (UMAW) have been instrumental in advocating for fairer contracts and improved working conditions for music professionals. In India, though, where most independent artists operate without that kind of protection, there’s an urgent need for associations that have the power to enforce fair pay, contract transparency, and workload standards. Without this, burnout will keep being mistaken for proof of success.
And perhaps most importantly, the people with influence — managers, promoters, and headline acts — need to normalize honesty. When a major artist admits to taking a loss on a tour or a brand openly shares a disappointing campaign result, it doesn’t weaken them; it sets a precedent that honesty won’t end a career.
These fixes are not about killing hype. They’re about building a system that can last beyond hype cycles. Until then, the money myth persists. We’ll keep reading about inflated fees, record-breaking sales, billion-stream milestones, and brand “impact” — while the people who make the music quietly wonder why they still can’t make rent.
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