“The financial availability for music sabhas in Chennai has significantly improved over the past few years. Look at how beautifully some of these sabha buildings have been revamped,” says Shriram Group Founder-Chairman R Thyagarajan, a long-time patron of Chennai’s December music festival. He adds that such improvements would not have been possible without corporate CSR funding. Carnatic music has always had a niche, loyal audience. “Only a few lakh people listen to it in a global population of 700 crore,” notes R Sridhar, Chairman, Fine Arts Society in Mumbai. The post-Covid period has further thinned out audience numbers, and the once-reliable NRI crowds have also reduced. For sabhas, this has created a widening gap between income and rising costs, that is now bridged only by corporate funding.
The Economics of Sabhas
Sabhas typically earn from ticket sales, memberships and hall rentals (when they own the venue). Their expenses, however, remain constant: venue hire (for those without their own auditorium), artiste fees, publicity, sound, lighting and operations. As audiences dwindle, this mismatch has only grown sharper. Corporate sponsorships now form more than 50 per cent and in some cases up to 90 per cent of festival budgets, which range from Rs 20 lakh to over Rs 75 lakh. Long-time sponsors such as Shriram Group, Nalli Silks, TVS companies, Apollo Hospitals and public-sector banks continue their patronage. Meanwhile, firms from booming sectors like real estate and healthcare have begun to enter the space as well, backing the 3000-odd concerts staged each season.
Why Some Sabhas Thrive?
With around four shows a day during the music season, only one that is headlined by a star performer is ticketed. The rest, featuring upcoming artistes, are free and underwritten by revenue from the headline events, annual memberships, off-season programming and corporate contributions. This is why sabhas with their own auditoriums fare significantly better. Narada Gana Sabha is one such institution. It does not aggressively seek new sponsors, relying instead on long-standing relationships. “Irrespective of sponsors, we do the shows,” says secretary K Harishankar. Hosting a mix of music, dance, drama and religious discourses every month, the sabha channels this steady stream of revenue back into the festival. However, prohibitive real-estate costs make it nearly impossible for new sabhas to build auditoriums today. In contrast, sabhas such as Brahma Gana Sabha, which depend on rented venues, face rent that can go as high as Rs 25 lakh for a 30-day season. Much of their funding gap is routinely filled by patrons like Nalli Silks. “Artistes don’t charge commercial-level fees at sabhas. It also depends on their gate-collection capacity for ticketed shows,” says secretary S Ravichandran.
Artistes Keep Coming Back
Even though Chennai audiences may be shrinking, the city remains the global epicentre of the Carnatic world. Sridhar notes that artistes often earn nearly multiple times more in Mumbai, which has a large south Indian community. But the Chennai season is where reputations are made. “This is where sabha secretaries and organisers from everywhere come to watch. If they like what they see, they put the artist on a pedestal. Those who make a name for themselves during the season get called for opportunities around the world,” says vocalist S N Shashikiran of Carnatica Global.
Competition for CSR funds
Despite corporate support, sabhas acknowledge that the music season is hardly an attractive advertising avenue. With modest footfalls, niche audience and an average attendee age of 50-plus, the branding impact is minimal. As Thyagarajan puts it, “CSR makes it necessary to spend some money. If you are inclined to support a cause, you spend more on it.” He points out that while more companies are willing to support cultural events, the number of cultural bodies competing has also surged. “In the 1970s, there were barely 10–12 sabhas. Today, there are around 70. Obviously, the money gets fragmented,” says Sundar. However Thyagarajan says, “the Shriram Group must spend Rs 150 crore annually under CSR. Of this, at least Rs 50 lakh is bound to go to music.” He adds that this figure would have been unimaginable before CSR norms, “maybe Rs 10 lakh at best.”
Innovation Without Dilution
To retain existing audiences, sabhas have experimented with new formats: thematic concerts like MS Subbulakshmi retrospectives, fusion experiments blending traditional and western instruments and shorter concert durations. However, they avoid digital live-streaming, arguing that the art form relies heavily on the immersive auditorium experience. Some artistes upload recordings on YouTube after the season, but digital monetisation remains insignificant. The real constraint is not talent or venues, it is attendance. “You can stage four stand-up comedy shows and they’ll all be full. But a Carnatic concert held once in six months may draw just 200 people,” says Sridhar. Traffic, digital entertainment and shrinking attention spans have made it even harder.
Thyagarajan offers a pragmatic perspective: “This is as much appeal Carnatic music will ever enjoy. It will never be a mass movement-and it doesn’t need to be.” With relatively modest funding needs and ample CSR budgets in India, sabhas can rely on stable corporate support. “As classical music, it will only get this much support and this much is enough to sustain it for the future,” highlights Thyagarajan.