Gadagne / MAM / MHL

What Gadagne / MAM / MHL does

Gadagne is a municipal cultural establishment (établissement municipal à caractère culturel) operated by the Ville de Lyon, located at 1 place du Petit Collège in the Vieux-Lyon UNESCO World Heritage area. The institution occupies a Renaissance building classified as a Monument Historique since 1920 — the largest Renaissance ensemble in Lyon — and houses two distinct specialized museums under a single institutional roof: the Musée des Arts de la Marionnette (MAM) and the Musée d'Histoire de Lyon (MHL).

The MAM, opened in November 2018 and renewed in June 2022 with "La Virevolte," maintains a permanent collection of more than 300 puppets, costumes, and sets drawn from Europe, Asia, Africa, America, and Oceania. The MHL completed a four-year renewal cycle in July 2023, reopening with four permanent exhibitions covering Lyon's urban history, river/industrial heritage, and civic engagement. The institution has deployed gigapixel ultra-high-definition viewing technology across 16 MHL tableaux to enable deep-zoom exploration of collection artworks, and operates auxiliary visitor infrastructure including an on-site café/restaurant, museum boutique, garden, and Renaissance-era spaces available for private rental.

Revenue is generated through unit-priced admissions (€8 full / €6 reduced / free under 18), guided tours and urban walks priced €30–€75 per group, school programming (free for teachers), children's birthday workshops at €80, multilingual adult group tours (French, English, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese), private venue rentals, and ancillary café/restaurant and boutique sales. The institution serves four primary customer segments — general public/tourists, K-12 school groups, families with children, and adult cultural/corporate groups — and is led by Director Xavier de la Selle. As a public municipal entity, Gadagne is supported by the Ville de Lyon and does not have private investors or external shareholders; revenue figures are not publicly disclosed.

Name

Gadagne / MAM / MHL

Legal name

Gadagne / Musée des arts de la marionnette / Musée d'histoire de Lyon

Website

https://gadagne-lyon.fr

Company type

Public

Founded year

2018

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Gadagne is a municipal cultural establishment of the City of Lyon operating two museums — the Musée des Arts de la Marionnette (puppetry arts) and the Musée d'Histoire de Lyon (city history) — within a Renaissance classified monument in Vieux-Lyon, serving tourists, school groups, families, and adult visitors through exhibitions, guided tours, and educational programming.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Cultural Museums and Heritage Exhibitions

NAICS

Historical Sites (712120), Museums, Historical Sites, and Similar Institutions (712), Museums (712110)

SIC

Services-Amusement & Recreation Services (7900)

akta.pro primary industry

Cultural Heritage Institutions (Archives, Historic Houses, Monuments Foundations) (THAJADAI)

akta.pro secondary industries

Performing Arts & Cultural Event Venues (Theaters, Museums) (THAHAAAG), Cultural Heritage & Historic District Tours (THAJAAAB), Museum & Landmark Guided Tours (Skip-the-line/Docent-led) (THAJAAAC), Specialty & Historic Venues (Landmarks, Estates) (THAHAAAK)

Keywords

• Cultural museum operations
• Puppetry arts collections
• City history exhibitions
• Guided urban walks
• Heritage education programs

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Technology or R&D, Infrastructure, Supply Chain

Pricing tiers

Distribution channels6 records

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

Gadagne operates a cultural complex housing two municipal museums within a Renaissance classified historical monument in Vieux-Lyon, France. The MAM (Musée des Arts de la Marionnette) presents over 300 puppets, costumes, and sets from Europe, Asia, Africa, America, and Oceania. The MHL (Musée d'Histoire de Lyon) presents four permanent exhibitions covering Lyon's urban history from medieval times to contemporary society. The core offering is complemented by guided tours, urban walks, educational workshops, children's birthday parties, conferences, an on-site café/restaurant, a boutique, and private venue rental of historic spaces.

Product overview

Gadagne is a cultural complex housing two distinct museums within a classified Renaissance monument in Vieux-Lyon, France. The offering consists of: MAM (Musée des Arts de la Marionnette), a museum dedicated to puppet arts with over 300 pieces from global collections, and MHL (Musée d'Histoire de Lyon), a city history museum with four permanent exhibitions. These core museum products are complemented by educational programs (school workshops, 'Patrimoine et moi' classes), guided tours and urban walks, children's birthday parties, conference events, a café/restaurant, and space rental. The institution operates as a municipal cultural establishment of the City of Lyon, offering both in-person visits and educational outreach.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• MAM - Musée des Arts de la Marionnette Museum dedicated to puppet arts, featuring over 300 puppets, costumes, and sets from Europe, Asia, Africa, America, and Oceania, exploring the origins, purpose, and performance of puppetry.
• MHL - Musée d'Histoire de Lyon City history museum presenting Lyon's history from medieval times to contemporary urban development through four permanent exhibitions (Portraits de Lyon, Les Pieds dans l'eau, Qu'est-ce que tu fabriques?, Lyonnaises Lyonnais!) and temporary shows.
• Visites guidées (Guided Tours) Professional guide-led visits of museums and historic buildings, available in French, English, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese for individual and group visitors.
• Balades urbaines (Urban Walks) Guided urban exploration tours through Lyon's historic neighborhoods including Vieux-Lyon, Croix-Rousse, and along the rivers, offered at unit prices of €30-75 per group depending on duration.
• Anniversaires enfants (Children's Birthday Parties) Birthday celebration packages for children ages 7-12 including themed workshops and museum exploration activities; 2-hour workshop at €80 with optional 30-minute room rental for €10 additional.
• Patrimoine et moi Educational program for Cycle 3 school classes in Lyon, developed in partnership with the Ministry of Education, exploring urban heritage and city discovery over one school year.
• Ateliers (Workshops) Hands-on creative workshops for children and families, including puppet-making, clay work, and themed activities linked to current exhibitions.
• Espace pédagogique (Educational Space) Educational resources and programs for school groups and leisure centers (K-12), aligned with national curriculum themes. Free for teachers and accompanying adults.
• Conférences (Conferences) Scholarly lectures and discussions on Lyon's history, puppetry arts, and related cultural topics hosted at the museum.
• Merveilleux Moyen Âge (Temporary Exhibition) Temporary exhibition at MHL exploring the history of the Abbey of Île-Barbe and medieval Lyon (5th-15th century), with reinterpretation of the period through the 16th and 19th centuries up to contemporary pop culture.
• Carte Blanche à la Compagnie à (Temporary Exhibition) Temporary exhibition at MAM featuring La Compagnie à, exploring themes of laughter, intimacy, and politics through puppetry art, running from April 2025 to Spring 2027.
• Café / Restaurant Gadagne On-site café and restaurant serving visitors, also available for private events and birthday celebrations.
• Location d'espaces (Space Rental) Rental of historic Renaissance spaces for private events, corporate functions, and cultural activities.

Quantifiable outcome

• MHL reopened with 4 new permanent exhibitions between 2019-2023
• +2 more outcomes

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature1 record

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Broad incumbents

• Musée du Louvre: France's flagship national museum and Musées de France member institution. While vastly larger, it shares the same Musées de France regulatory and curatorial framework, public funding model, and educational programming infrastructure relevant to municipal museums.

Direct peers

• Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon: Lyon's flagship fine arts museum, also a municipal cultural institution in the city. Comparable in audience profile (tourists, school groups, families), operating model (municipal ownership, free for under-18s, guided tours), and visitor scale within the Lyon's museum ecosystem.
• Musée des Confluences: Major science and society museum in Lyon operated as a mixed municipal entity. Comparable as a peer museum in the same city competing for tourist and school group traffic, with similar exhibition programming and educational outreach.
• Centre d'Histoire de la Résistance et de la Mémoire de Lyon (CHRD): Lyon-based history museum focused on WWII resistance and human rights, also part of Lyon's municipal museum network. Directly comparable in curatorial approach to history, audience overlap with MHL, and shared institutional framework.
• Musée d'Histoire de Marseille: City history museum in Marseille with permanent exhibitions spanning antiquity to present. Closely mirrors MHL's model of comprehensive urban history storytelling, comparable in scale, audience segments (tourists, schools, families), and programming structure.
• Musée Carnavalet: Paris's city history museum covering Parisian history from prehistory to present, housed across historic mansions. Directly analogous to MHL in curatorial model — chronological city history narrative with permanent and temporary exhibitions.
• Musée des Tissus et des Arts décoratifs de Lyon: Another municipal museum in Lyon housed in a historic building, focused on textile and decorative arts heritage. Comparable in institutional model (municipal, classified-monument setting), visitor structure, and city-level positioning.
• Musée de la Poupée (Paris): Paris-based museum dedicated to dolls and puppets, focused on collecting and exhibiting toys and figures. Comparable niche focus to MAM, with overlapping collection themes and family audience.

Emerging players

• Historial Jeanne d'Arc: French history-focused museum in Rouen using immersive digital and theatrical interpretation techniques. Comparable to MHL's 2019-2023 renewal approach that combined permanent exhibitions with immersive storytelling, sharing audience overlap with French heritage tourists.

Regional players

• Deutsches Museum für Figurentheater: German puppetry and figure theater museum in Bad Oeynhausen, dedicated to preserving and exhibiting puppetry arts in Europe. Directly comparable to MAM in collection focus (puppets, marionettes, theatrical figures) but serves a German-speaking audience.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat3 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/GadagneLyon
• YouTubeyoutube.com/channel/UCl2gfDANaepwV79leYJy-0Q
• Facebookfacebook.com/mamgadagne
• Instagraminstagram.com/mamgadagne
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/gadagne-mam-mhl

Compliance3 records

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Subsidiaries2 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Gadagne / MAM / MHL