Museum Connections · 2027

Agoris analysis · updated October 2026

Key takeaways

• Museum Connections is the international trade show for products, solutions and services for museums, cultural venues and tourist sites, structured around three worlds: Museum Life (consultancy and cultural engineering), Museum Tech (equipment, ticketing, digital interpretation) and Museum Shop (retail products).
• Organiser: ARTODAY. An annual event, held in January for more than thirty years, under the name Museum Connections since its rebrand (formerly Museum Expressions).
• Next edition: Tuesday 12 and Wednesday 13 January 2027, at Paris Expo Porte de Versailles, hall 5.2, followed by an off-site day on Thursday 14 January (Open Museum and Retail Tour visits).
• Results of the last edition (2026, 13-14 January): 6,332 participants including 21% international, 403 exhibitors including 44% international, 68 bilingual conferences.
• Strictly professional access: free badge until 31 October 2026, €30 until 11 January 2027, €40 on show days. Conference Pass at €90.

Who exhibits

Typical profile

Museum Connections brings together suppliers from the whole value chain of a cultural or tourist venue, which makes it a broad show for a niche sector. Three worlds coexist in the hall.

Museum Life covers services: consultancy and cultural engineering, project management assistance, communication, site management, licensing and sponsorship, training, exhibition design. Museum Tech covers equipment and technology: visitor management, ticketing, visit aids, audiovisual, scenography and signage, collections management, points of sale, interpretation, virtual reality and artificial intelligence. Museum Shop covers retail products, historically the heart of the show: publishing, jewellery, tableware, fine food, games, fashion, stationery and souvenirs.

The internationalisation of the exhibitor line-up is the standout feature of recent editions: 44% of the 403 exhibitors in 2026 came from abroad, mainly from the Netherlands, Spain, Germany, Italy and Belgium.

Notable exhibitors

The list of 2027 exhibitors is published and updated by the organiser on the dedicated page of the official website, with a search by world and by country. The show is also backed by a network of institutional and press partners: SNELAC, La Demeure Historique, the Museum Store Association, Culture & Management, Museums and Society Wallonia and TEO Exhibitions, which operates a pavilion of touring exhibitions.

Quality of the audience

This is the show's central claim, and it is documented. The organiser publishes the breakdown of the 6,332 participants in 2026 by type of organisation: 42% museums and foundations, 17% historic monuments and cultural sites, 10% aquariums, zoos, parks and leisure parks, 9% consultancy and engineering, 7% tourist offices and local authorities, 7% professional associations and ministries, the remainder made up of libraries, galleries and press.

The roles represented are mostly decision-makers: heads of institutions, site managers, curators and exhibition commissioners, project managers, development and outreach officers, buyers and prescribers. The organiser states that 96% of exhibitors report meeting visitors involved in the decision and 94% are satisfied with the quality of visitors.

The international dimension of the visitor base remains more modest than that of the exhibitor line-up: 21% international visitors and more than fifty nationalities, led by Belgium, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Institutions on the visitor list published by the organiser include the Musée du Louvre, the Centre Pompidou, the Château de Versailles, the Mucem, ZooParc de Beauval, Puy du Fou, the Rijksmuseum, the Tate and the British Museum.

Events & community

Conference programme

Content is the show's second driver. In 2026, 68 conferences were scheduled over two days: 13 Inspiration Conferences, 22 Innovation TV sessions, 25 Culture Business Talks and 8 Meeting Room sessions, in French and English, later rebroadcast online.

The Inspiration Conferences address the sector's major shifts: inclusion, accessibility, new forms of interpretation, environmental and social issues, artificial intelligence. Their editorial line is set by an Inspiration Board, three members of which have been announced for 2027: Agnès Abastado (EPMO, Musée d'Orsay and Musée de l'Orangerie), Felicia Sternfeld (ICOM Europe, European Hansemuseum Lübeck) and Selma Toprak-Denis (Centre Pompidou).

Innovation TV is a showcase of case studies born from collaborations between institutions and suppliers. The programme announced for 2027, whose sessions will go online in autumn 2026, is built around six themes: the Duos, with fourteen "Venue x Supplier" pairings on deployed projects, two study presentations, two CSR and environmental sessions, two sessions on touring exhibitions, one on the export of cultural and creative industries, and one on talent retention. The Culture Business Talks are twenty-minute formats focused on own-resource revenue: merchandising, concessions and catering, space hire, sponsorship.

Selections and distinctions

The show does not award prizes, but runs two editorial selections that act as a label.

The Duos Selection highlights collaborations between a venue and a supplier, on a project deployed less than a year ago, in a brisk twenty minutes (ten of interview, ten of questions and answers). Entries are chosen by a panel of experts in the development of cultural and creative industries, including Antoine Roland, founder of Correspondances Digitales.

The Pop-up Store Selection is the product showcase: a staged space where a panel of professionals, including Jeanine Aalfs (Wereldmuseum Amsterdam) for 2027, selects pieces for their creativity, ethics and commercial potential. Both selections will be unveiled in autumn 2026.

Community & networks

The show extends its two days in the hall with an off-site day on Thursday 14 January 2027: Open Museum, running since 2025, offers workshop visits to Parisian professionals who open up the backstage of their projects, and the Retail Tour is a guided visit of museum shops and concept stores, in French and English, with lunch and a group debrief.

On the Paris calendar, Museum Connections holds the back-to-school slot. SITEM, the international show for museums, monuments and cultural tourism, is held at the Carrousel du Louvre from 31 March to 1 April 2027: the same field, but a tighter format and without the volume of international suppliers. For organisations whose development also relies on tourism marketing, the complementary dates in the catalogue are IFTM Top Resa in September and the Salon Mondial du Tourisme in spring.

On site: what you need to know

For detailed access, parking and accommodation, see the venue page: Paris Expo Porte de Versailles, 1 place de la Porte de Versailles, 75015 Paris. The show occupies hall 5.2.

Opening hours: Tuesday 12 January from 9.30am to 6.30pm, Wednesday 13 January from 9.30am to 6pm. The Porte de Versailles station is served by metro line 12 (exit 1), tramways T2 and T3a and buses 80 and 39, with a Vélib' station on avenue Ernest Renan. The venue's car parks include spaces for people with reduced mobility: ten at car park 1, forty-five at car park 6, twelve at car park 7 in Vanves.

Badges are requested online: free until 31 October 2026, €30 from 1 November 2026 to 11 January 2027, then €40 on 12 and 13 January. The €90 Conference Pass adds a reserved seat in the front rows of the Inspiration Conferences, cloakroom access, the VIP/Press Club and an invitation to the networking evenings. Press accreditation is free subject to validation, as are jobseeker and student badges on proof submitted before 18 December 2026. The networking platform opens in November.

Contacts: Amélie Lavergne (visitors) and Marie Gribaudo (exhibitors), following the format firstname.surname@museumconnections.com.

How much it costs to exhibit

Preparing your visit

For the exhibitor

• Choose your package early: between bare stand, Basic, pre-fitted, Premium and targeted offers, the budget gap is considerable for a comparable surface area.
• Apply for the editorial selections, which close in autumn: the Duos Selection requires a project deployed less than a year ago with the client venue, the Pop-up Store Selection focuses on the product. These are the show's two free-visibility mechanisms.
• Propose an Open Museum visit or an Innovation TV session if the project suits it: these formats add a speaking slot in front of decision-makers.
• Fill in your profile on the networking platform from November: the show only lasts two days and buyers' agendas fill up beforehand.

For the decision-making visitor

• Request your badge before 31 October 2026: free until that date, paid afterwards.
• Weigh up badge versus Conference Pass: at €90, the Pass is only worthwhile if the Inspiration Conferences are the main reason for attending.
• Block out the third day if the topic is retail or the visitor experience: Open Museum and the Retail Tour, on 14 January, are the event's real differentiator.
• Prepare your meetings from November and target by world: Museum Life, Museum Tech and Museum Shop do not speak to the same roles.
• Flag an accessibility need in the registration form, which has a dedicated field.

Policy & CSR initiatives

Museum Connections publishes a two-part commitments page, environment and accessibility, with operational measures rather than intentions. On equipment and logistics, the organiser states 100% recyclable carpet, eco-designed signage, LED lighting, 100% rented furniture and 88% of stands fitted with reusable partitions. The stand contractor's workshop restores used materials through non-polluting processes such as ultrasonic cleaning, with specific sorting for aluminium and carpet.

During the event, hall temperature is capped at 19°C in line with government recommendations, and water fountains replace single-use plastic bottles. Badge holders made from recycled kraft paper produced in France are collected at the exit for recycling, official bags are made in France by INDISPENSAC, and printing is deliberately limited.

The accessibility strand is handled with unusually fine detail for a trade show: the venue is fully accessible to people with reduced mobility, wheelchairs are lent by the first-aid post, conferences are subtitled for deaf and hard-of-hearing visitors, and signage uses large, high-contrast lettering. On the cognitive side, the organiser states it does not use inclusive writing in line with CNPCH recommendations, and draws where possible on FALC (easy-to-read and understand) principles.

The venue adds a verifiable guarantee: the site is operated by Viparis, the world's leading operator of event venues, certified ISO 20121 across all its Paris sites, as part of its Better Events 2030 strategy.

How the trade show has evolved

Trajectory analysis

The trajectory is one of steady growth: 6,208 participants in 2025, up 15% on 2024, then 6,332 in 2026, an exhibitor base rising from 380 to 403 and a programme following suit, from 61 to 68 sessions.

The underlying trend is the internationalisation of supply: 44% of exhibitors were international in 2026, while the visitor base remains around 80% French. A European supplier comes to Paris to gain access to the French-speaking market, while a French institution finds a continental offering it would not otherwise see.

The second trend is the format's extension beyond the hall: Open Museum since 2025, the Retail Tour, online rebroadcasts and the networking platform opening two months ahead stretch a two-day event into a longer sequence, and make plain stand presence less rewarding than a built-out participation.

There remains a structural limit: the market is narrow, constrained by public culture budgets, and the show fits within a single hall. Its value comes from the concentration of decision-makers, not from its size.

All data not attributing a source comes from the organiser's website.

Unless otherwise stated, all factual data in this listing comes from the organiser's official website (museumconnections.com).