The Long Night of the Museums in Vienna

Once a year the ORF, Austria’s public broadcaster, opens museums across the country for one evening on a single ticket. The 2026 night, the 26th, is Saturday 3 October, from 18:00 to 24:00, in all nine federal states and in parts of Liechtenstein, Slovenia, Germany and Switzerland. The organiser counts around 670 museums taking part, and more than 120 of them are in Vienna.

We sell nothing for this night. Tickets come from the ORF’s own scheme, through the museums and the organiser’s meeting points, and the organiser’s own site, langenacht.orf.at, is the only place that is right about its programme.

The ticket

• Full ticket €19; reduced €16 for pupils, students, seniors, people with disabilities, people doing military service and Ö1 Club members.
• Children up to twelve go free — for 2026, that means born after 2 October 2014.
• The regional ticket at €7 is not sold for Vienna and is not valid in the cities; it covers certain regional museums outside them. In Vienna, buy the full or reduced ticket.
• One ticket gets you into every participating museum, as many as you can reach. Only the night’s own ticket counts: no other pass or museum card is accepted.
• The ticket is not transferable and is not replaced if you lose it.

Where to buy it

1. 01In advance, at any participating museumEvery museum taking part sells the ticket in the weeks before, on its own terms of payment. The ORF’s online advance sale for 2026 closed on 27 September.
2. 02Or at the “Treffpunkt Museum”Vienna’s meeting point is on the Maria-Theresien-Platz, Burgring 5. In 2026 it opened on Thursday 1 October from 14:00 to 18:00, on Friday 2 October from 10:00 to 18:00, and on the day from 09:00. It sells tickets and hands out the printed booklet.
3. 03Bring cash to the meeting pointThe organiser takes cash at the meeting points, refuses €200 and €500 notes, and says card payment is not possible at every one of them.

How the Vienna night works

The ticket doubles as a travel ticket: in 2026 it is valid on public transport in Vienna’s core zone, Nightline buses included, from 17:00 on 3 October until 00:59 on 4 October. Vienna’s part of the programme is organised the same way, by a walking route from the meeting point and by the ordinary underground, tram and bus lines that reach each house.

The 2026 Vienna list runs from the Kunsthistorisches Museum, the Naturhistorisches Museum, the Albertina, the Leopold Museum, mumok, the MAK and the Lower Belvedere to district museums, the Haus der Musik, the Technisches Museum Wien and the Sigmund Freud Museum. Some of the night’s entries move: the organiser lists a museum tram run by a railway enthusiasts’ association and sightseeing vehicles among them. For cyclists there is a pop-up WienMobil Rad bike station at the meeting point.

How to plan a route

1. 01Pick three houses, not tenSix hours goes quickly once you add the walk, the queue and the cloakroom. Choose two you want to see and one you can drop.
2. 02Read each museum’s own page firstEach house describes its programme for the night — talks, concerts, readings, sometimes food — and the organiser warns that start times can change.
3. 03Group by line, not by fameChoose houses that sit on the walking route or on one underground or tram line, so the night is spent inside museums rather than between them.
4. 04Put the big name firstThe organiser warns of waits at museums with large crowds and limited room, and says some hand out counted admission tickets for particular events. Check that on the museum’s page before you build an evening around it.

The ticket does not guarantee you a place at anything that is full.

Capacity rules are the museums’ own and the authorities’. The organiser is plain about it: the ticket does not guarantee you a place at anything that is full. With more than 120 houses open in the city, the answer to a long queue is usually the next museum.