The 1st International Forum for Future Museums (27th to 29th January 2009), held in partnership with Les Echos, was held at the Carrousel du Louvre in Paris at the same time as SimeSitem. It was an opportunity for museum managers and professionals dedicated to the enhancement and equipment of cultural sites to learn about five flagship museographic projects, currently in progress or coming soon: Centre Pompidou-Metz, Louvre-Lens, Confluences-Lyon, Mucem-Marseille, Soulages-Rodez.

The 2nd Forum is to be held between 26th and 28th January 2010, again with SimeSitem and also at the Carrousel du Louvre in Paris. Its theme: Attracting the public, and its sub-theme : Culture and tourism in town.
Attracting the public is now more than ever the strategic variable for any cultural production. The most spectacular developments have been seen in museums, large and medium-sized, and we will be examining in detail the resources and methods deployed. But it also has an effect on host towns and cities. There is an objective correlation between the general interests of towns and cities and their cultural "constituents", because the maelstrom of international competition affects them all equally.

Today, the role played by culture in a city's image and development is no longer in question. The English/American concept of a "creative city" is a clearly targeted objective. We will be analysing several examples, such as Nantes, through its long-standing policy, but also Lille, with its mastery of event organisation and its spectacular ability to involve a very wide public.

Festivals, events, exhibitions, but also architecture and urban planning. Some benchmark examples will be offered: Ruhr 2010, Shangaï 2010, the Copenhagen programme (2002-2010), and also the Nice tramway, an elegantly successful alliance of urbanism, architecture and art. We will also examine the role of fashion and design through the action of one major player such as Vuitton (Cityguide) and the influence exerted by cinema on the drawing power of film locations (FilmFrance).

The new technologies have a direct impact on the way towns and cities are visited. But there is no doubt that they have also created the desire to discover new urban spaces, in line with the desire for independence which visitors are asserting.

To deal with these vast subjects, we will take a number of concrete examples, described and explained by those who are overseeing them at the highest level. Direct players, urban professionals in the fields of culture and tourism, will share their experiences, which we will put into perspective in the light of a critical examination of more global concepts.