Industry sustainability plays a vital role in shaping the environment for cultural and creative business development. However, considering the influence of the external environment and random factors on the technical efficiency of cultural and creative industries with the inherent defects of the traditional data envelopment analysis model; this manuscript analyzed the operating efficiency of 56 cultural and creative enterprises using the three-stage DEA model from 2012 to 2018. An analysis of the results shows that differences in efficiency exist between stage (...) one and stage three DEA. Furthermore, the environmental elements and statistical noise measured by the stochastic frontier analysis in stage two reveal positive and negative influences on the creative cultural enterprises at different stages. As a result, the overall efficiency of the listed cultural and creative industries was revealed to be low in China. Finally, this study suggested effective countermeasures and recommendations for better-operating efficiency systems for cultural and creative enterprises. (shrink)