The Living History Museums and archaeological open-air museums of Europe join their resources. From 11th – 13th November 2005, the members of EXARC met in Asparn an der Zaya (AT), north of Vienna. In the Metternich-Schloß, the director of the Niederösterreichisches Landesmuseum für Urgeschichte, Dr. Ernst Lauermann, welcomed the 25 museum directors and employees who travelled down to the meeting from Austria, Germany, France, Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and Hungary.

Focus of the conference was a closer cooperation and network of the members in an EU Project by the name liveARCH. To reach this, different workgroups were established which will work on obligatory quality standards as well as joint strategies in education, training, offers and finances. This way, not only what is offered to the public should be better tuned with each other; it should be possible to transfer new ideas faster and more effective over all member’ museums.