SHILLONG: The Meghalaya government spent ₹23.5 crore on seven festivals and concerts in the 2024–25 financial year. The Tourism Department estimates that the events generated ₹133.42 crore in economic activity. The estimate covers a single season. The records reviewed did not show how much the Meghalaya Democratic Alliance (MDA) government spent on festivals each year during its first eight years in office or how much it collected from those events.
The seven events included the Shillong Cherry Blossom Festival, the Me’Gong Festival, Winter Tales, the Shillong Literary Festival and concerts by Bryan Adams, Alan Walker and Ed Sheeran. The department estimated that the events drew nearly 76,000 tourists over 13 event days. Hotels earned ₹33.78 crore, while transport operators and taxi drivers earned ₹5.38 crore. Homestay operators quoted in the department’s report said some visitors extended their stays after attending the events.
The ₹133.42 crore figure measures the estimated value of economic activity associated with the seven events. The department’s summary did not provide a combined figure for government receipts from ticket sales, sponsorships and fees, or specify how much additional state tax revenue the events generated. Calculating how much of the expenditure flowed back to the state treasury would require figures for those receipts and for total public spending on the events.
Tourist arrivals rose, but local festival attendance remains unclear. Meghalaya recorded 13.85 lakh tourist arrivals in 2023, 16.08 lakh in 2024 and 18.55 lakh in 2025, according to a reply tabled in the Legislative Assembly. Arrivals rose across the three years, though the figures do not show how much of that increase was attributable to festivals.
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Meghalaya Tourism recorded around 50,000 visits to the 2025 Cherry Blossom Festival over two days. The published figures did not specify how many attendees were Meghalaya residents. The Cherry Blossom Festival was held six times between 2018 and 2025. It was cancelled in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic and in 2022 following the fatal incident at Mukroh. If it goes ahead as scheduled on November 20 and 21, 2026, it will be the seventh edition since 2018. Local musicians and artisans gained access to audiences and buyers.
Winter Tales gave Meghalaya acts such as Sur Na Nongkyndong, Sieng Riti Wakkhen, The Grassroots and Khasi Bloodz a platform to perform. It also gave weavers, artisans and food producers space to sell directly to visitors. The government said artisans and weavers from all 12 districts took part in the 2024 festival.
In a separate initiative, the Tourism Department said the Meghalaya Grassroot Music Project registered more than 7,750 singers and musicians and organised 13,104 performances, with total spending of ₹38.69 crore. Those figures cover the entire music programme. Festival-level records of bookings and payments would show how much Meghalaya artists earned and how often emerging acts from outside Shillong were invited to perform.
The Tourism Department set a target of allocating 30 per cent of stalls to Indigenous weavers, bamboo artisans and home-based food producers. The available figures do not show how many stalls were allocated under that target, how much vendors earned after expenses or whether they received repeat orders after the festival.
The department’s estimates indicate that hotels and transport operators benefited from the festivals and concerts held in 2024–25. A festival-by-festival breakdown of public spending, government receipts, artist fees and vendor earnings would show how widely those benefits were shared and how much of the expenditure flowed back to the state treasury.
