Salone Internazionale del Restauro 2026, Ferrara: three days that gave us a lot
Ferrara, May 12 to 14, 2026. Three days at the center of one of the most important conversations in Europe on the future of cultural heritage.
amuseapp was there.
Why the Salone del Restauro matters
The Salone Internazionale del Restauro di Ferrara is not just any trade fair. It is the event where restorers, museologists, heritage authorities, cultural institutions, universities and innovators meet: a rare ecosystem in which technical depth and strategic vision share the same space.
For us, the leading Italian platform for designing accessible, personalized visit experiences for museums, villages, parks, castles and churches, it was the right setting. Not just to "be there," but to bring a perspective that still struggles to find space in conversations about heritage: that of data, visitor behavior and experience design.
A stand that got people talking
Even before the conference, it was the stand that started the conversation.
We designed it as an interactive, engaging experience, able to invite passersby to stop, not just to look. And it worked.
But the most interesting thing is what we learned from the public itself.
We asked two simple questions to 100 people among the fair visitors. The answers gave us plenty to reflect on.
"What should a museum never be without?"
The first question was deliberately open. We wanted to understand what the public, not industry professionals but people, considers essential in a museum experience.
The most frequent answers:
- Good lighting, because a poorly lit work is a work that is never truly seen
- Guides designed for children, because culture must speak to every generation
- Interactive elements, because standing still and looking, after a while, is not enough
- Prices accessible to everyone, because heritage belongs to everyone
- Accessibility, understood broadly: physical, sensory, cognitive
- Clear captions, because too much explanation is as opaque as no explanation at all
- Chairs and benches, to stop, breathe, and observe better without the rush to keep walking
- Clear information for everyone, not just for experts
- Inclusive routes, that leave no one behind
Nothing revolutionary, on the surface.
And yet: how many museums truly meet all of these criteria? How many design the experience with this checklist in mind?
"How do you feel when you visit a museum?"
The second question aimed at something more intimate: the emotion, not the rational assessment.
The three most common answers struck us for what they say together:
"Inspired and fulfilled", some people leave a museum energized, recharged, with something extra.
"I wish I understood more", some people are left with the feeling of having brushed against something without truly grasping it.
"Interested, but a bit lost", some people enter with genuine curiosity and end up disoriented along the way.
These three states of mind say it all. A museum works, emotionally and culturally, when it turns "I wish I understood more" and "I am a bit lost" into the same feeling as those who say "inspired and fulfilled."
It is not a matter of content: it is a matter of experience design.
And that is exactly the problem that amuseapp helps solve.
The conference: Netflix, TikTok and the future of museums
On May 12, in the Sala De Chirico, Marco Da Rin Zanco, CEO and founder of amuseapp, led a conference together with Dr. Luca Zamparo, museologist at the University of Padua, titled "How to design an accessible, engaging visit experience in the age of Netflix and TikTok".
The starting point was an uncomfortable question:
why does a person spend two hours on Netflix without getting bored, while twenty minutes in a museum feel like an eternity?
The answer has nothing to do with the quality of the content, nor with today's audiences supposedly having a shorter attention span. It has to do with design, and with data.
Netflix knows the exact second a user loses interest. TikTok builds a precise profile in 15 minutes of use. Museums, in most cases, still ask "how was the visit?" and almost always get "lovely," learning almost nothing from it.
As Luca Zamparo summed it up from the stage: "Fatigue in museums is something we all experience. It has been studied, but the approach today is still too theoretical and too disconnected from action."
The good news? Museums have a structural advantage that Netflix will never have: they offer a physical, present experience that, if designed well, does not consume attention but regenerates it.
The topics covered during the conference have already been explored in more depth in this article.
What we are taking home
Three days in Ferrara gave us confirmations and new ideas.
Confirmation that the question driving us, how to design a visit experience that truly works for everyone, is the right question. And that the sector is ready to listen to it.
New inspiration from the 100 answers collected at the stand: visitors know very well what they want. They also know how they feel when something does not work. The work ahead is to turn these perceptions into structured data, design decisions and better experiences.
That is what we do every day with amuseapp: helping cultural venues understand how their visitors move, what holds their attention, what loses it, and how to design an experience that leaves a mark.
The Salone del Restauro was a beginning. We go back to work with more clarity, more connections, and a few more questions to explore.
Want to bring innovation to your cultural venue? Discover amuseapp and book a free demo.
