Rome Future Week: A completely different side of the city

One question our team at From Home to Rome gets asked surprisingly often by guests who have already ticked off the Colosseum, spent a morning in the Vatican, and eaten their weight in carbonara is some variation of: “What else is there? Something that isn’t a museum or a church or another food tour?”

It’s a fair question, and it usually comes from travelers who sense, correctly, that Rome is a living city with a contemporary identity that the standard tourist itinerary rarely gets around to showing. If you happen to be in Rome between September 21 and 27, we have an answer that is, we think, rather good: Rome Future Week.

What is Rome Future Week?

Now in its fourth edition, Rome Future Week is a city-wide festival dedicated to innovation that transforms Rome into a large open-air map to navigate, with talks, exhibitions, courses, experiences, and workshops organized across a wide variety of venues. There is no single entrance point: the program spreads across the city.

The concept is deliberately different from a conventional conference or trade fair. Rome takes the future out of traditional conference halls and brings it into offices, schools, universities, shops, museums, and laboratories. The result is something closer to a city-wide conversation than a ticketed event — and one that is largely open to anyone who wants to participate.

Over 70,000 people took part in the festival across its first three editions, and the numbers for 2026 are expected to be comparable. This is not a niche gathering for tech insiders. It is a genuinely public festival, and first-time visitors to Rome are as welcome as anyone else.

The theme for 2026: “Materia Prima”

The 2026 program revolves around the theme “Materia Prima” — an invitation to look at the people, skills, ideas, and relationships from which transformations take shape. The Italian phrase translates literally as “raw material,” but the festival uses it in a broader sense: the human and intellectual resources that make change possible.

For seven days the city will be crossed by meetings and projects dedicated to how innovation is shaping the future of work, training, cinema, health, sustainability, mobility. Of course the city will have its own focus, with talks and ideas to change the way residents live in Rome. It is, in other words, a program that reflects the full range of things a contemporary city thinks about — not just technology, but culture, environment, and community.

How it works: Future Hubs and the entire city as a venue

The practical structure of Rome Future Week is one of the things that makes it genuinely interesting for visitors. The program is organized through eleven Future Hubs — thematic locations designed to observe these changes from different perspectives and connect different worlds, experiences, and areas of expertise.

These hubs are spread across the city rather than concentrated in a single venue, which means that following the festival takes you into parts of Rome that most tourist itineraries never reach. Events take place at the venues of the organizations hosting them — from the Gazometro in Ostiense to Corviale — and the full event map is available at romefutureweek.it/mappa-eventi, where you can filter by date, location, and theme. This may very well be the chance to discover areas of the city you wouldn’t have visited otherwise!

Rome Future Night runs alongside the daytime program with thirteen evening events including DJ sets, jam sessions, live painting, exhibition openings, and shared dining experiences — which means the festival has a social dimension that extends well beyond panels and presentations.

The full program is at romefutureweek.it/events. Most events are free to attend; some require registration. Check individual listings for details.

Why it’s worth your time, even as a tourist

We’ll be honest: Rome Future Week is not on most visitors’ radar. It doesn’t appear in the standard guidebooks, and it’s not the kind of event that travel agencies package alongside a Colosseum tour. Which is, arguably, exactly why it’s interesting.

Attending even a single event gives you access to a Rome that the majority of tourists never see: a city that is actively thinking about its own future, populated by Romans who are passionate about what they do, in venues that range from repurposed industrial spaces to university courtyards to neighborhood cultural centers. You don’t need to speak Italian to get something out of it as many events have English-language components, and the atmosphere at most hubs is open and informal enough that language is rarely a barrier.

If you’re the kind of traveler who likes to leave a city feeling like you’ve understood something about how it actually works, not just how it looks — Rome Future Week is, this particular week, the best answer we know.

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FromHomeToRome manages vacation rentals across central Rome, and our team is in daily contact with guests who want to experience the city beyond its most famous landmarks. If you’re staying with us during Rome Future Week and want advice on which events best match your interests — or simply need help figuring out how to get from your apartment to a venue on the other side of the city — we’re here. Browse our apartments and get in touch.

Last updated: September 2026