CultureCon 2026 will take place on August 6-7 in collaboration with the National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA), bringing together creative leaders from across India for two days of learning, innovation, and networking
Art X Company and Festivals From India are bringing CultureCon, India’s flagship multi-disciplinary conference for India’s creative sector, to Mumbai on 6th and 7th August, 2026, in collaboration with the National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA). CultureCon is a platform where India’s creative industry gets organised with artists, designers, writers, filmmakers, and creative entrepreneurs coming together. The two-day event brings the creative sector together in one place to forge innovative partnerships, participate in intense discussions, and innovate ideas. The fourth edition will continue the legacy of its previous editions and solidify its position as India’s leading conference that connects ideas, people, and possibilities.
CultureCon, which began in 2020 as a conference co-founded by Art X Company and Godrej India Culture Lab, laid the foundation for a conversation that examined the structure of India’s culture sector. Over three editions (2024, 2025), that conversation evolved. After the 2025 edition, which focused on building creative futures, policy, and careers, this year the frame widens to include the creative economy: the culture, capital, commerce, and careers that glue the industry together.
For two days, CultureCon will become a stage for the future of creative work. A cross-sectoral convention of people who are at the forefront of India’s creative boom, shaping careers, driving change, and imagining a new future, will come together. Through its programming, it is deliberately building bridges across silos and genres rather than catering to one sector at a time.
This year’s programme critically looks at the systems and infrastructure that creative careers actually run on. Through conversations, masterclasses, and debates, the 2026 edition will dive into how careers are built, how work gets commissioned, and how capital moves through the sector. Following are some of the key sessions:
Yeh Orange Economy Kya Hai Bhai: A keynote address by Sanjoy Roy (Managing Director, Teamwork Arts Private Limited) will unpack what India’s new policy around the creative economy actually means for people building it.
Skilling for the Creative Economy: What India Got Right, What It’s Still Getting Wrong: Another keynote address will be by Ashish Kulkarni (Founding Director, Indian Institute of Creative Technologies). He has spent three decades building the institutional scaffolding that India’s creative economy still largely lacks. During his keynote address, he will examine how the 10 million livelihoods in India’s creative economy, formed largely outside formal education systems, can be formalised.
The Big Fight: AI and the Future of India’s Creative Economy: CultureCon 2026 is bringing Roshan Abbas (Founder, Kommune Arts Pvt Ltd), who built India’s largest storytelling collective on the premise that no machine can replace the human voice, and Vijay Subramaniam (Founder & Group CEO, Collective Artists Network), who has created an AI cinematic studio on one stage. The two industry giants who have spent decades building India’s creative economy will participate in a moderated debate on AI, creativity, and who India’s creative economy actually belongs to.
Creative Skilling: A Data Intervention on Creative Education and Skills Gap: This session will lay bare the irregularities between the booming sector and creative skilling, led by Asad Lalljee (CEO, Avid Learning & Curator, Royal Opera House).
Building A Music Venue Circuit: Featuring Girish ‘Bobby’ Talwar (Founder, Rebellion Management & Entertainment), Shlipi Gupta (Founder & Curatorial Lead, CRUX), Dipti Rao (DGM-Auditorium Operations, Prestige Centre For Performing Arts), Rafael Pereira (Managing Partner, Tinnuts), Dev Bhatia (COO, Big Bad Wolf), and Jishnu Dasgupta (Bass Guitarist & Artist Manager, Swarathma) will attempt to solve the infrastructure issue of building and sustaining gig circuits across Indian cities.
Pricing Your Projects: From scoping and costing to margins and final quotes, Himanshu Vaswani (Co-founder, 4/4 Experiences) will give a live breakdown of how to price a creative project.
Culture And The City: In partnership with Crisil Limited, the session will take a deeper look into what it takes to make Mumbai and other Indian cities creatively alive. At CultureCon 2026, Suraj Iyengar (Director and Practice Leader-Urban Consulting, Crisil Intelligence) and Bruce Guthrie (Head, Theatre and Films, NCPA) will investigate the question of what conscious, sustained investment in creative infrastructure actually looks like.
We Will (Sustainably) Rock You: Swarathma became a pioneering figure as the folk-rock band powered their entire concert tour through solar and clean energy. One of the band members, Jishu Dasgupta, will enlighten artists, producers, and other stakeholders on how his band built India’s first renewable energy tour and their learnings during this process.
Uncentred: Creative Economies Beyond The Metro: A unique reverse pitch will bring five practitioners from beyond the metro-centric creative economy to ask the room some difficult questions it hasn’t had to answer. Varun Chauva (Himachal Pradesh), Banyllashisha Wankhar (Meghalaya), Murup Namgyal (Ladakh), Vohbika Hrahsel (Mizoram), and Grace Lillian Lee (Australia) will each get ten minutes. Not to pitch their work but to pose a question to the audience based on what the creative industry has overlooked. The session is presented in partnership with Royal Enfield Social Mission, with the Australian Consulate General Mumbai as the international partner.
Other speakers who will be present across two days include Tess Joseph (Co-founder, Spoken Fest & Casting Director, Tess Joseph Casting), Rohan Marathe (Lead-Digital Accessibility and Partnerships, Access For All), K V Kanchana (CEO, Network of Indian Cultural Enterprises), Geetu Hinduja (Singer and Songwriter, Geetu Unplugged), Pankaj Tak (Founder & Director, Some Good Gigs), Meghana (Head of Inclusion, Museum of Art & Photography), and Farzana Cama Balpande (Head, BookAChange By BookMyShow Foundation).
CultureCon 2026 Networking Mixers: On both days, CultureCon 2026 will round off with an evening of networking and performance. On August 6, Kommune presents Don’t Worry, Ho Jayega, a live performance by Roshan Abbas. It will be a rollicking, heartfelt account of almost a lifetime spent building experiences in India’s live events industry. On the second day, B-Spot Productions will present Rang Birangi Lavani with three artists reimagining the folk dance’s history of breaking shackles of caste, class, gender, and desire while blending immersive performance with tales of love, loss, and longing in conversation with queerness.
Additional sessions span arts accessibility, city-building, policymaking, and legal frameworks around creative businesses. Alongside, there will be masterclasses designed for networking and mentorship. These sessions are designed so that the data and speakers will challenge the room. Every session is curated to leave attendees with something—a finding, a commitment, an output—not just conversations.
Talking about the latest edition of CultureCon, Rashmi Dhanwani, Conference Director – CultureCon India & Founder-Director, Art X Company and Festivals From India, said, “Building the creative economy isn’t just about funding or infrastructure – it also means making sure more people can participate in and contribute to these conversations as well as take ownership of their careers and growth. That’s what this year’s programme is designed to do. Through a diverse line-up of speakers and sessions, we’re bringing together different perspectives on creative skilling, community building, funding, collaboration, and the future of the sector in a way that’s practical, relevant, and rooted in real experience. Because culture doesn’t exist in isolation, neither should the conversations that shape it.”
On the first ever collaboration with CultureCon, Bruce Guthrie, Head, Theatre & Films, NCPA, said, “CultureCon is such an important gathering because it brings the creative community together to share ideas, learn from one another and build new partnerships. At the NCPA, we are proud to have been a home for the performing arts in India for generations and to continue supporting the artists, institutions and ideas that will shape its future. We are delighted to be collaborating with an initiative that celebrates the strength of India’s cultural sector and encourages even greater collaboration across it.”
CultureCon is building the blueprint for India’s creative economy by bringing together change-makers to define what’s next for the creative sector. The latest edition will provide a platform for actionable insights, tangible opportunities, and measurable impact for the creative workforce, shaping the future of creative work in India.
Book your tickets now at cultureconindia.com
