Paris Creator Week Doubles to 8,000 as Creator Economy Nears $1.2 Trillion

By Elena Vasquez

Paris Creator Week opens today at the Halle de la Villette with 8,000 expected industry professionals — double last year's 4,000 — as a new study forecasts the global creator economy will hit $217.3 billion in 2026.

The figure marks a 26.2% year-on-year increase. The market has nearly tripled over five years. The study projects it will reach $1.22 trillion by 2033 — roughly the current GDP of Spain.

France stands at the center of that growth. The French creator economy will reach $10.1 billion this year, up 23.7% from 2025, and could more than double to $24.3 billion by 2030. That ranks France seventh globally and third in Europe, behind the U.K. and Germany. The sector already supports 227,000 full-time equivalent jobs.

How big has the event become?

The exhibition space has grown fivefold, from 200 to 1,000 square meters. YouTube alone has booked a 100-square-meter stand. Overseas attendees now account for 30% of participants. Senior executives from YouTube, Twitch, LinkedIn, Spotify and SoundCloud are attending, alongside traditional media groups including Banijay and Mediawan.

Marc Lesage-Moretti, a former Goldman Sachs vice president turned creator known online as Jokariz, co-founded the event in 2024 with Pierre Alary. He says the industry's perception has changed.

"In the United States, everyone was talking about the creator economy, but when I started using that term in France three years ago, people looked at me as though I was speaking Chinese to them," Lesage-Moretti told Variety. "They would say, 'Oh, the creator economy? You mean 14-year-old kids making entertainment videos in their bedrooms on YouTube?'"

"People hadn't yet understood how much this industry was becoming professionalized," he said, citing the digital news outlet HugoDécrypte, which now employs around 40 people, including journalists and human resources staff.

Unlike consumer-facing conventions, Paris Creator Week positions itself as a B2B gathering — "the VivaTech of the creator economy," in Lesage-Moretti's words — where creators, platforms, brands, agencies and investors pursue partnerships.

Where does the money come from?

Sponsorships and commercial partnerships account for 49.8% of the global creator economy, followed by advertising on creator content at 22.7% and paid subscriptions at 13.8%. Advertisers are expected to contribute $172.8 billion in 2026 — 79.5% of total spending — while creators receive an estimated $92.6 billion, or 42.6% of the overall market.

"Commercial partnerships are the main driver of growth," Lesage-Moretti said. "Brands that traditionally invested their money in other media or advertising channels are redirecting those budgets toward content creators."

The shift extends beyond luxury brands, he added: "We're talking about every kind of brand: banks, major corporations, large businesses." The money flows directly from company to creator, without the platform taking a single euro.

The industry's expansion is also fueling consolidation. The study counts 70 acquisitions globally in the first half of 2026, up 23% year-on-year. North America accounted for 64.3% of acquisition targets, against 27.1% for Europe.

Paris Creator Week has dedicated an entire conference track to M&A, including how investors manage "key man risk" in businesses built around a single personality. Lesage-Moretti cites the French podcast company Legend, which attracted a Belgian fund at a €72 million valuation.

"These are businesses that people thought couldn't be sold because they were too dependent on a single personality, but we're seeing that's not necessarily the case," he said.

Can creators become media companies?

Drew Baldwin, head of Prentiss Media, founder of Tubefilter and creator of the Streamy Awards, argues the next stage of growth depends on creators evolving from personalities into scalable businesses.

"I still think creators on social platforms, including YouTube, are renting audiences. They don't own the audience," Baldwin told Variety. "And the creators who can figure out how to take their audience and own that relationship are the ones who are going to be able to build new businesses around that community."

Baldwin points to MrBeast, Dhar Mann and the Sidemen as examples of creators expanding beyond their original audiences. "Those who can scale, like the Sidemen, WatchTime Studios and Dhar Mann, are the ones who are going to be able to do large-scale media deals," he said. "Instead of just using creator marketing budgets, they can unlock true media budgets, which are really big."

He sees France as well positioned. "France has always been, culturally, a champion of independent voices," he said. "French cinema has an outsized footprint considering the size of the country. You have the Cannes Film Festival. You have an extraordinary amount of production coming out of France."

He attributes the U.S. lead to "a common language and a more unified advertising market that make it easier to scale businesses."

Convergence with traditional media is already underway in France, where Banijay, Mediawan, TF1, Netflix and Canal+ are exploring creator-economy opportunities. Lesage-Moretti cites YouTuber Inoxtag, whose documentary "Kaizen" sold around 300,000 tickets in a single day through MK2's French theaters while generating 40 million to 50 million views on YouTube.

Baldwin is using the event to launch Creator Kitchen, an initiative connecting traditional and new media executives, with a dinner at L'Envol, Michelin-starred chef Thibaut Spiwack's rooftop restaurant at the Philharmonie de Paris. Guests include Twitch CEO Dan Clancy; Justine Ryst of YouTube France and Southern Europe; Nielsen CFO Jessica Holscott; and Mediawan's Vincent Grynbaum, among others.

Lesage-Moretti and Alary still finance the event themselves. They have received outside interest but want to keep control.

"France has always been able to attract people from all over the world to Cannes for the film festival," Lesage-Moretti said. "We think the same thing should happen in the creator economy."