From exhibit to audio guide: what QR codes achieve in museums and at events

A small square has settled in between display cases and stages: whether on the museum exhibit, in the programme booklet or at the trade fair stand — QR codes have arrived in the cultural sector. The reason is practical: hardly any technology connects physical space with digital depth so cheaply. It needs no loaned devices, no app of your own and no hardware on the wall — only a print and the telephone that visitors are carrying anyway. What the cultural sector can do with it, where the limits lie and what counts in the implementation: an overview.

In the museum the code solves an old dilemma: the object label is supposed to be short, the knowledge behind it is not. A code next to the exhibit offers depth on demand — the detailed catalogue text, photographs from the conservation workshop, an interview with the artist, the provenance history. Anyone interested dives in; anyone wanting to move on is not held up. The label stays uncluttered, the knowledge stays accessible — a division of labour that serves both sides.

Multilingualism is of particular interest for smaller institutions. Printed companion booklets in five languages are expensive and go out of date with the first rehang; a web page behind the code can leave the choice of language to the guests and is maintained centrally. A single code per station is enough — the destination page does the switching. For institutions that cannot afford professional translation machinery, this is often the only realistic route to a multilingual offering.

The classic audio guide is getting competition as well: instead of loan devices with a keypad, a scan leads to the audio track for the station in question. Honestly, the preconditions belong with it: visitors need their own smartphone, headphones and a data connection — the last of these is not a given for guests from abroad without a roaming package. A guest Wi-Fi network whose access hangs at the entrance as a Wi-Fi code solves that elegantly. And for everyone who cannot or does not want to scan, text panels and staff must continue to carry the content: the code is a supplement, not a condition of access — and that is also a question of accessibility.

At events a different strength plays the leading role: changeability. Programme booklets go to print days or weeks before the event — and then a panel is moved, an act cancels, a room changes. A dynamic QR code in the printed programme points to a schedule online that can be updated up to the last minute; the booklet stays valid even though the evening changes. Codes of this kind, with a destination that can be edited afterwards, can be created in the browser via QR2GO's English-language home page, for instance, and redirected later without the print being touched.

For temporary exhibitions this yields a life cycle that can be planned. The codes are created in the web generator weeks before the opening, as soon as the exhibition graphics go into production; what is stored to begin with is a plain information page with the key facts and the opening date. For the opening, those responsible switch the destinations to the finished station content — the printed panels remain untouched. And after the dismantling the codes do not have to die: in catalogues and companion booklets that continue to be sold, they can be redirected to a documentation page that preserves the texts and images of the exhibition. That way the catalogue is still a functioning book years later, instead of pointing to dead addresses.

Added to that are the small services on the side: the site plan at the festival entrance, current notices at the box office, the guest Wi-Fi in the foyer. At trade fairs and industry gatherings the digital business card replaces the stack of cards — a vCard code at the stand saves the contact details straight into the other person's address book, without typos and without follow-up work in the evening.

At conferences and symposia a second pattern has established itself alongside: the code at the end of the talk, leading to the slides, to further material or to a short feedback form. It solves a real problem — nobody types out a long address in the final minute of a talk — but it demands care in the way it is embedded: large enough on the closing slide, a few moments of standing time, and next to it the short address in plain text for everyone whose telephone is not to hand just then. If the code is set up dynamically, the same closing slide can be reused for years while different documents lie behind it depending on the event.

The principle works beyond enclosed institutions too: cultural trails and city walks mark their stations with weatherproof codes leading to background texts, historical photographs or audio pieces. Here, though, the dependence on the mobile network becomes particularly clear — what the guest Wi-Fi solves in the museum foyer has to be delivered outdoors by network coverage. A short plain text on the panel summarising the essentials keeps the station alive for people without reception too.

One limit has to be named clearly: tickets are a different business. Admission tickets with a QR or barcode come from ticketing systems that generate a unique code for every ticket and invalidate it at the entrance control. A QR generator such as QR2GO is neither intended nor suited for that — it generates codes for information, not for rights of admission. Anyone wanting to control admission needs a ticketing system; anyone wanting to inform is in the right place with the generator. The confusion is rare, but expensive.

The look at the scan figures is of interest to cultural institutions. Dynamic codes count how often, when and from which region scanning took place — broken down by station, it can be observed which exhibits awaken digital curiosity and at which times of day the public goes into depth. For programme work and for funding applications, usage data of this kind is valuable. Two qualifications belong with it: only those who scan are counted — the silent majority remains invisible, and the figures are an excerpt, not a portrait of the audience. And as soon as your own web analytics such as GA4 with UTM parameters is running on the destination pages, the usual GDPR obligations apply: consent, privacy policy, transparency.

In design terms, codes in the exhibition space need not be foreign bodies. Colours, corner shapes and patterns can be adapted to the exhibition graphics, and in the premium range with an embedded logo as well; the design functions of modern generators are flexible enough for that. Legibility nevertheless takes precedence — and in the museum it is determined by an often underestimated factor: the light. Darkened rooms demand larger codes and strong contrast; spotlighting on glossy paper produces reflections, against which matt material helps. The test on site, in the real light and with several telephones, is irreplaceable.

It makes sense to turn this test into a fixed ritual: a walk-through before the opening, station by station, with at least two different telephones. Three things are checked — does every code actually lead to its own station rather than to the neighbouring case, does the destination page load in acceptable time on the institution's guest Wi-Fi, and are the language version and the state of the content correct? Mix-ups are, in experience, the most common error when many similar-looking codes are mounted at the same time; a small plain-text abbreviation of the station directly beneath the code helps the installation team as much as it later helps the guests. During the run, a weekly inspection round takes over the same checklist in short form — not least in order to spot damaged or overstuck codes in good time.

For dimensioning, the proven rule of thumb applies that the scanning distance should not exceed about ten times the edge length: a code meant to be read from two metres away needs an edge length of around twenty centimetres. For wall panels and large formats, vector formats such as SVG or PDF are advisable, as they scale without loss; PNG is sufficient for handouts, programme booklets and screens.

A special role is played by codes that are not printed but displayed — on the monitor in the foyer, in the projection in the lecture hall, at a media station. In principle scanning from a display works, but the sources of error shift: reflective screens produce glare, moving content around the code disturbs recognition, and in presentations the square is readily scaled down so small that it stands no chance from the back rows. Anyone projecting a code gives it its own calm slide, sufficient size and a light background — and leaves it up long enough for the audience to get their telephone and camera out at all.

Organisationally, discipline helps: one code per station, meaningful names in the administration account, one person who is responsible. Dynamic code slots can be reused for the next exhibition after one has been dismantled — the destination is redirected, the slot remains. For small institutions a free account with 20 slots is often enough for that; larger projects with full scan analysis and high-resolution exports fall into the premium tariff at 5.99 euros a month. The tariff comparison creates clarity about which scope is actually needed.

The editorial side is readily underestimated. The destination pages behind the codes are publications of the institution and belong in the same workflow as wall texts and catalogues: someone is responsible for the content, someone checks the translations, someone maintains the changes — and does so over the entire run, not only up to the opening. Where audio content lies behind codes, transcripts belong with it, for guests with hearing impairments as much as for everyone who does not happen to have headphones with them. In the end the same standard of quality applies to the destination page as to what is written on the wall: the scan is a promise that the page behind it has to redeem.

One dependency should be borne in mind throughout the planning: dynamic codes work only for as long as the redirect service behind them is running and the account exists. For a temporary exhibition of four months that is uncritical; with a permanent exhibition whose signage is meant to hang for ten years, the question of the service's longevity is a legitimate one — or the decision in favour of static codes pointing to permanently stable addresses of your own is the more cautious choice.

That leaves the question of measure. Not every museum visit should end at a screen; some guests are looking in the exhibition space for precisely a break from the telephone. The good news: used properly, the code does not impose itself. It stands at the edge of the panel, not in its centre; it supplements what is there anyway rather than replacing it. The best QR code in a museum is the one you can ignore without consequence — and which gives those who want to know more exactly that.