Museums as third places: from the value of a visit to sustainable revenue

Wednesday 18 November 2026
BRUSK, Bruges
09:00–17:00
Free of charge · registration required

Museums and science centres give people a great deal. How can the value they bring become a sustainable source of income — and who should pay for it?

A day about value, and about who pays for it

A museum visit does people good. It calms, connects and inspires; it gives people a place to think, to meet and to belong. More and more museums understand themselves as third places — the open, shared spaces between home and work where a community takes shape. BRUSK, the new exhibition hall of Musea Brugge, was built on this idea: its whole ground floor is freely open to the people of Bruges and their guests, a public place first and an exhibition venue second.

The Open Day provides a space for reflection. What value does a museum create for different people — the local resident and the tourist, the school class and the retired couple, the patient, the employee and the online follower who may never set foot in the building? And how can that value be translated into sustainable revenue, and by which stakeholders: the visitor, the employer, the insurer, the health service, the public funder or the private partner?

If wellbeing is what museums produce, who pays for it?
The question of the day — taken up by the closing round table

The programme

Six ways the value of a visit becomes income

Speakers from museums and science centres across Europe and beyond look at how institutions are turning what they give people into sustainable revenue.

Partnerships with other industries

Employers, the health sector, tourism and education all gain from what a museum gives people. What happens when a visit is part of an employee wellbeing programme, prescribed by a doctor, or bundled into a city break?

Wellbeing programmes

The programmes museums run and fund themselves — what they cost, what they return, and how they are sustained beyond a pilot.

Online communities

Belonging created far beyond the building, for followers who may never walk through the door.

Brand licensing

The museum's name and collection treated as an asset — where licensing works, and where it strains the institution.

The museum shop

New findings from the Future Museum benchmarking of museum shops, on the last room of the visit.

Closing

Round table: who pays for wellbeing?

A closing round table brings the stakeholders together on the question of the day. The day ends with a reception at the City Hall of Bruges.

Opening keynote

John Falk on what a museum visit is worth

For more than four decades John Falk has studied why people visit museums and science centres and what they take away. One of the most cited researchers on the value of the visit, and author of The Value of Museums: Enhancing Societal Well-Being, he opens the day with his notion of wellbeing and with what museums bring to individuals and to society.

BRUSK © Jan Darthet

BRUSK © Jan Darthet

The venue

BRUSK, Bruges

BRUSK opened in May 2026 next to the Groeningemuseum, in the historic centre of Bruges. Designed by Robbrecht en Daem and Olivier Salens, it houses two monumental exhibition halls on the first floor and returns its entire ground floor to the city as freely accessible public space.

Delegates walk through one of the busiest historic centres in Europe and arrive somewhere calm and contemporary. Musea Brugge opens the day with the ambitions behind the building, its role as a third place for Bruges, and the first findings of its opening evaluation.

Who should attend

Deliberately open: Future Museum members meet colleagues from across the sector

Directors and senior managers of museums and science centres

Heads of commercial, retail and revenue

Heads of audience, learning and digital

Researchers and public funders working with the sector

Practical information

Everything you need to plan the day

Date: Wednesday 18 November 2026, 09:00–17:00. Registration and welcome coffee from 08:30.
Venue: BRUSK, Musea Brugge
Dijver 12, 8000 Bruges, Belgium
Participation: Free of charge. Places are limited to 150 and registration is required.
Language: English
Registration: Via Museum Connections
Full programme: Published here in the coming weeks

Join us in Bruges on 18 November

Free of charge, limited to 150 places. Registration is handled by Museum Connections.

Organised by

MUSEUM BOOSTER, Museum Connections and Musea Brugge

The Future Museum Open Day is organised as part of Future Museum, the international research programme in which 44 museums and science centres across 19 countries work together on the futures of the museum. The Open Day follows the closed meeting of the Future Museum cohort in Bruges on 16 and 17 November 2026.