Website, Online Store, and Ticketing for the Belvedere: The Path to a Digital Museum

The Austrian Gallery Belvedere is a public research institution that unites three venues under one brand: the Upper Belvedere, the Lower Belvedere, and Belvedere 21. At the start of the project, the museum operated two websites that looked nearly identical. Many visitors did not understand the relationship between the venues. The umbrella brand strategy was not being implemented digitally.

On top of that, there was a deadline: A time-slot system had to be up and running by June 2019 to manage visitor flows at the Upper Belvedere in compliance with the law. This required the rapid technical integration of the website, online store, and new ticketing system.

The relaunch combined brand identity, visitor services, and sales into a single platform. Development took place in stages: first, the B2C web store with a time-slot system in June 2019; one month later, the website with the new brand identity; and in the fall of 2019, the addition of annual passes as well as interfaces to the CRM and newsletter systems.

Design and Brand Management. The screen design carries over the Belvedere’s visual language from print to the web: large-scale works of art—often shown as close-ups—the “Europa” house typeface, and a color palette of white, red, and black, complemented by pastel shades to create a clear content hierarchy. The entire design is implemented using a “mobile-first” approach and optimized for accessibility.

The umbrella brand brought to life. The homepage and footer display the three venues, including opening hours, addresses, and admission prices, all at a glance. The “Plan Your Visit” page brings together all the information about a specific location in one place. Each exhibition has its own hub with information about artists and their works, which remains available as a digital archive after the exhibition ends.

Online store with time slots. The ticket shop guides visitors directly to the right ticket by asking, “Which venues would you like to visit?” rather than listing all combination tickets. Time slots can be selected in just a few steps. The system is connected to the museum’s point-of-sale system.

Digital Annual Pass Subscription. A digital subscription system for annual passes simplifies the museum’s ticket management: online purchases, secure user management, and automated, recurring payments for renewals all take place without any manual effort on the part of the museum staff. The flexible Drupal architecture made it possible to integrate these complex e-commerce processes directly into the existing content platform. The feature was also adapted for on-site use, allowing visitors to purchase and manage their passes directly at the museum.

Second-generation store featuring go~mus. The Belvedere’s shop system has been completely rebuilt twice. The current version is based on go~mus, a ticketing and visitor management software solution specialized for cultural institutions that is used by over 500 venues across Europe. Integration with the Drupal platform was recently completed, and the system has since been handling ticketing for all three venues in a single system.

Digital Museum Ecosystem. In addition to the website and the online store, several subprojects round out the Belvedere’s digital presence—some integrated with Drupal via interfaces, others as standalone tools: the digital collection at collection. belvedere. at , the digital library, the digital archive, scholarly catalogs, an online print shop for art prints, the NFT platform thekiss. art, as well as gaming formats on Roblox and itch. io .