Seventeen Fairs, One Causeway

Art Basel Miami Beach fills one convention center for three public days. The other 16 fairs fill a week, two shorelines, three hotels, a train station, and most of the tents in Miami-Dade County.

They are also where the news is. The main fair made itself smaller on September 29. The same day, the team behind SCOPE put out a release for something called InScope, on SCOPE’s old patch of sand, with 16 founding partners and no word on what became of the old name. Untitled Art has 166 exhibitors and 52 first-timers. NADA Miami has published its prices, from $45. Art Miami is giving Shepard Fairey an award and a DJ booth, Haute Living reports. Pinta marks its 20th anniversary. Prizm and Satellite have said nothing at all.

This page keeps score. Each fair has a card below with its dates, door, and price, what its organizers are saying about themselves this year, the latest dated developments, and who has written about it. The cards are rechecked as organizers publish, and the press lists refresh from the Biennale news feeds.

Seventeen fairs is the count for 2026 with dates or a listing to their name. Fifteen have confirmed dates from the organizer or the visitors bureau. Two do not, and are marked.

Three caveats. SCOPE first: the old SCOPE web address now redirects to inscopeart.com, and the launch release of September 29 speaks of a first edition, created by Matt Middleton, Alexis Hubshman, Hayley River Smith, and the team behind SCOPE Art Show. What the organizers have not said is that SCOPE Miami Beach has been renamed or retired, and the visitors bureau still lists it for the same dates at 801 Ocean Drive. Same team, same sand, same week: a rebrand is the obvious reading, but it is not a stated one.

Then the last two rows. The visitors bureau, whose list was last updated on August 17, gives Prizm, the fair for artists of Africa and its diaspora founded by Mikhaile Solomon in 2013, as December 3 to 5. Those are last year’s dates exactly, and the fair’s own site still shows 2025. Satellite Art Show, the artist-run fair held at a South Beach hotel in 2025, is listed with dates and venue to be decided, and its site says nothing about Miami this year.

Read side by side, the fairs’ own pages sort into four sales pitches, and one refusal.

The first pitch is restraint. Art Basel is selling a smaller fair as a better one, and its announcement talks about a reconfigured floor before it talks about art. Untitled Art answers in the same key: five sectors, three guest curators, and an executive director who lists rigor ahead of the market.

The second is community. NADA, a non-profit, describes its fair as the visible part of a membership that operates all year, and attaches a museum gift to the ticket. Pinta sells an anniversary and a region. AfriKin and Art Beat Miami sell a diaspora and a neighborhood, with workshops, a runway show, and a chefs’ brunch on the same bill as the pictures.

The third is scale, stated in numbers. Art Miami counts editions, 36, and galleries: more than 150 in its organizer’s June preview, more than 130 in October’s press. Red Dot and Spectrum count square feet, 150,000 of them, and expected visitors. The vocabulary is that of the trade show, and makes no apology for it.

The fourth is new this year: the conference. InScope’s launch release names asset managers and crypto firms among its 16 founding partners, and its program includes a day called The Art of Wealth and a Wellness Oasis. Art, in this account, is what gives people who came to Miami for several reasons something to talk about.

Design Miami stands a little apart, with one word, Unveiling, and a promise that objects have ideas inside them.

The refusal is price. No fair page read for this guide says what the work on its walls might cost, with one exception: Spectrum and Red Dot put a ceiling in print, a Discoveries Collection at $3,000 or less.

Distance changes the subject. Three reading lists follow, sorted by how far the writer sits from Biscayne Bay; each refreshes from the Biennale news feeds, and the fixed lists underneath are what was found by hand on October 5.

Local outlets cover the week as a civic event: which fairs, what they cost, how to get there. NBC 6 did last year’s arithmetic, 20 fairs and tickets from $45 to $175, and Axios Miami the short guide. They are also the only press that reliably travels to the fairs farthest from the convention center: WLRN on Prizm, Local 10 on AfriKin. Most local coverage arrives in the last ten days of November, which is why much of this list is still dated 2025.

The national art press covers a market. The September 29 exhibitor list produced same-day pieces from Artnet News, Artsy, ARTnews, and Artforum, each about who is in and who is out; a satellite earns a paragraph on the day it publishes a list. From abroad the week narrows again, to Art Basel as a barometer: The Art Newspaper on floor area, Il Sole 24 Ore on confidence, Artprice on the mid-market. The design press files the same seven days under Design Miami. One gap is worth stating: beyond Hypebeast, which is a partner in the venture, no outlet read for this page has yet reported on InScope.

The main fair got smaller on purpose and said so. Art Basel’s September 29 announcement names 272 exhibitors from more than 40 countries and territories, against the 283 that took part in 2025, on a convention center footprint that The Art Newspaper puts at about 12% smaller.

The fair calls this refinement. The arithmetic is plainer: the main sector has lost 22 exhibitors, there are four hospitality plazas where there were five, and the largest galleries are now spread across the floor instead of grouped together. For a visitor, the consequence is a hall that can be read in a day. For a dealer, it is a shorter list to be on.

The 272 is a sum with an overlap. Art Basel counts 254 galleries across four sectors, Galleries, Nova, Positions, and Survey, and 22 in Zero 10; four of those 22 also show in Galleries. The full exhibitor list is sorted by sector.

Artnet News reads the cut against a year in which galleries and collectors have taken a more measured approach to fairs. Bridget Finn, in her third edition as director, described the same mood to Artnet from the other side: exhibitors, she said, are planning more carefully what they want to project about their businesses and their artists.

Galleries: 204

The main sector falls from 226 exhibitors to 204. Art Basel describes it as museum-caliber Modern and postwar work alongside contemporary practice, and the names at the top have not moved: Gagosian, Hauser & Wirth, David Zwirner, White Cube, Pace Gallery, Lisson Gallery, Paula Cooper Gallery, Galerie Max Hetzler, Thaddaeus Ropac, Sprüth Magers, Esther Schipper, and Xavier Hufkens are all in the release.

Two galleries enter the sector for the first time, Arario Gallery of Seoul and Galería Casado Santapau of Madrid. Art Basel also describes El Apartamento as the first Cuban gallery in the main Galleries sector. Seven return to the main sector after time away: Pilar Corrias, DC Moore Gallery, Alison Jacques, Kerlin Gallery, Modern Art, Edward Tyler Nahem, and Mariane Ibrahim. Selma Feriani Gallery is back after eight years.

The departures are the more telling list. Kurimanzutto, Night Gallery, and Gallery Wendi Norris are not returning, according to both Artnet News and The Art Newspaper. Artnet adds Goodman Gallery and Sperone Westwater, which has closed; The Art Newspaper adds Commonwealth and Council, Gallery Hyundai, Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, and Richard Saltoun.

The fair remains a hemispheric one. More than two-thirds of its galleries have spaces in the Americas, by Art Basel’s count. Brazil supplies the third-largest national contingent, 23 galleries have Los Angeles spaces, and Chicago sends five.

South Florida’s list has movement in it. Fredric Snitzer Gallery, David Castillo, Gavlak, and Nina Johnson return. Spinello Projects makes its Galleries debut after showing in Nova, and Piero Atchugarry Gallery advances to the main sector. El Apartamento opened a Miami space in late 2025; Eric Firestone Gallery has expanded to West Palm Beach.

The audience is institutional too. Art Basel expects its largest contingent of museum groups of any of its 2026 shows, and two acquisition prizes return: the Legacy Purchase Prize and the CPGA-Villa Albertine Prize.

Nova, Positions, Survey, Kabinett

• Nova, 20 galleries, each showing new work by up to three artists. Sargent’s Daughters and Marinaro are among the newcomers.
• Positions, 12 solo projects by emerging artists. First-timers named by Art Basel include Galeria Nora Fisch, TERN Gallery, Storage, King’s Leap, Harkawik, Moskowitz Bayse, and Sea View.
• Survey, 16 historically focused presentations by 18 galleries, devoted to practices the fair considers due renewed attention. New here: de Sousa Galería, Galería de las Misiones, Omer Tiroche Gallery, The Bonnier Gallery, Andrew Reed Gallery, Fort Gansevoort, and Mariposa.
• Kabinett, 28 focused presentations set inside exhibitors’ own booths: one artist, one historical body of work, or one theme at a time.

More than 30 exhibitors are new to the fair, most of them in these smaller sectors, and five countries appear for the first time: The Bahamas, Estonia, Georgia, Ghana, and Hungary. The smaller sectors were trimmed as well. Surface counts four fewer booths in Positions and two fewer each in Nova and Survey.

Zero 10: Generation

The sector for art of the digital era, introduced in Miami Beach in 2025, returns as an exhibition titled Generation: 19 projects from 22 galleries and platforms. It is curated by Karen Archey, head of the curatorial department at the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, with Eli Scheinman, who curated the first edition, as co-curator and strategic advisor. Artists named so far include Jon Rafman, Refik Anadol, Random International, Sarah Meyohas, Studio Drift, LoVid, Harm van den Dorpel, Daniel Rozin, and Yatreda.

Archey’s title carries two meanings, by her account in the release: generation as the computational process that produces images, and a new generation of artists working through the systems of the digital age. Art Basel has also made its first appointment to run the sector, hiring Nicole Sales Giles, formerly of Christie’s, as Global Head of Zero 10 in September.

What Is Missing: Meridians

Meridians, the sector for large-scale work, appears nowhere in the 2026 announcement. Surface states that it has been discontinued; no second outlet has confirmed that wording, and Art Basel’s release is silent. Unconfirmed Its last outing, in 2025, was a sixth edition of 19 works curated by Yasmil Raymond. Several tourism listings still show Meridians for 2026; they appear to be carrying last year’s copy.

Outside the Hall

Scale has moved outdoors. The Turrell Art Foundation and Art Basel, supported by Pace Gallery, will unveil what the release calls a significant new body of work by James Turrell, sited outside. In Collins Park, the Public Art Fund presents Between Tides, a set of artist-designed ping-pong tables meant to be played on, curated by Gabriela López Dena, with Moko Fukuyama, Ilana Harris-Babou, Las Hermanas Iglesias, Carlos H. Matos, Amalia Pica, and SUPERFLEX.

The Art Basel Awards, presented with BOSS, hold their second Awards Night on Thursday, December 3, at New World Center, where the Gold Awardees are named from a field of 33 Medalists in nine categories. The Conversations program will give one full day to art and sport; its speakers have not been published. Not yet announced

Tickets for the main fair are on sale, and Art Basel’s ticket page says two things about them: they are sold in the official online shop, and availability is limited. It sorts them into two families, General tickets and Premium Passes. On October 5 neither that page nor the shop behind it would show an automated reader a single name or price.

The table therefore still rests on two secondary listings, and each row says which. A price on the official shop’s own screen outranks every figure here.

Which One to Buy

• One day at the fair: the day ticket. The hall is smaller this year and can be read in a day. Choose the date before buying, because the ticket is good for that date alone.
• A quieter first hour: First Access, if the shop confirms what travel.art describes. The $13 difference buys an earlier door, not a longer day.
• Two days, or a lunch outside: the Weekend ticket. It is the only general ticket any listing describes as allowing re-entry, and it costs $14 less than two day tickets.
• Students, teenagers, seniors, veterans, and Miami Beach residents: look for the reduced day ticket, and carry the proof.
• Premium Passes: buy only after reading the official description. The listing that gives their prices does not say what they include, and at $1,250 and up that is the whole question.

Children under 13 appear in no listing read for this guide. Not yet announced

Hours, and One Discrepancy

Art Basel’s release gives public hours of 11 am to 6 pm on all three days. One guide, travel.art, says general admission begins at noon and that 11 am is reserved for First Access holders, which would explain what the extra $13 buys. The two statements cannot both be right, though a timed entry slot printed on every ticket would reconcile them. The ticket settles it: go by the slot it prints.

The Preview Days

Wednesday, December 2 and Thursday, December 3 are by invitation, and no source read for this guide explains how invitations are allocated. Art Basel’s visitor page gives Wednesday’s invited access as starting at 4 pm and shows no further hours. Two secondary guides, Miami Living and travel.art, give the fuller pattern, which matches 2025 exactly: First Choice from 11 am to 7 pm on both days, Preview from 4 pm Wednesday and all day Thursday, and Vernissage from 4 pm to 7 pm Thursday. Unconfirmed

Guided tours run daily during show hours with ArtNexus, in English and Spanish, from a desk in the North West Lobby on Level 2. The tour price does not include admission. Self-guided groups must register and are capped at 12 people on public days.

Tickets for the Satellites

The satellites divide into fairs that publish a price, fairs that do not yet, and fairs that are free.

• Art Miami and CONTEXT share one ticket: $71 for a day, $184 for a multi-day pass that also admits one day at Aqua, $330 for VIP, and $48 for seniors over 62, students aged 12 to 18, and groups of ten. Children 12 and under enter free with a ticketed adult. Sales are online only; there is no box office on site.
• Aqua Art Miami is the cheapest ticketed door on the beach: $32 for a day, $26 reduced, online only.
• InScope prices by date of purchase: $50 for a day and $100 for the week through October 18, then $70 and $140. Miami Beach residents, students, and seniors pay $30, rising to $40.
• Red Dot Miami and Spectrum Miami charge $50 in advance for a day, or $85 for the opening-night preview, which includes every fair day, according to a press release reprinted by Miami Living.
• AfriKin Art Fair starts at $12.51 through Eventbrite, per the visitors bureau; children 12 and under are free, according to the fair.
• NADA Miami has published early-bird prices: $45 for a day, $65 for a multi-day pass, and $150 for the vernissage pass. Seniors over 65 and students pay $35, at the door only; children 12 and under are free. The fair warns that few tickets will be sold on site.
• INK Miami Art Fair is free with online registration.
• Untitled Art says tickets are live, but its prices could not be read when this page was checked. Design Miami and Pinta Miami had not published 2026 prices. Not yet announced

NADA’s ticket does some institutional work: a portion of the proceeds funds the ninth annual NADA Acquisition Gift for Pérez Art Museum Miami, according to the fair.

The week does not begin with Art Basel. By the time the main fair admits the public on Friday, every other confirmed fair is already open and NADA has one day left.

Three practical readings follow. Tuesday is the densest day of previews and the easiest to waste: Design Miami’s and Art Miami’s overlap in the early afternoon on opposite sides of the bay, with Untitled Art’s the same day. Friday and Saturday are the only days on which every confirmed fair is open at once. And Sunday closings come early: Design Miami, Art Miami, CONTEXT, and Aqua all shut at 6 pm, an hour or more ahead of their weekday times. INK’s Sunday close is given as 3 pm by the visitors bureau and 6 pm by another listing; assume the earlier.

Seventeen fairs cannot be done; five routes can. Each takes one day, keeps to one side of the bay where it can, and links to the fair cards above for addresses, maps and tickets. Hours for several fairs are still unpublished, so check each card on the morning.

The 17 fairs sort into two groups with Biscayne Bay between them, and the working rule of the week is to cross it as few times as possible.

The beach cluster runs down the island from the convention center: Art Basel and Design Miami face each other at 19th Street, INK is at 1850 Collins Avenue, Aqua at 1530 Collins, Untitled Art at Ocean Drive and 12th Street, and InScope four blocks farther at 8th. Fridge’s three sites fall inside the same stretch. The convention center lists the city’s free trolley, county buses stopping at 17th Street, and free Freebee on-demand rides as the ways to move along it. Its own garage holds 800 cars at a standard flat rate of $20; Art Week rates are not stated.

The mainland cluster is looser. Art Miami and CONTEXT sit on the bayfront at One Herald Plaza, NADA is at 1400 North Miami Avenue, and Red Dot and Spectrum are in Wynwood. Pinta, in Coconut Grove, and AfriKin, in North Miami, are outliers at opposite ends of the county and each wants its own half day.

Between the two, no rail line reaches the convention center, which the venue places six miles from Downtown Miami. In 2025 the City of Miami Beach ran a free water taxi and free shuttle loops for Art Week, including one to the Design District. The 2026 routes and hours had not been published when this page was checked. Not yet announced The city’s year-round free water taxi between Sunset Harbour and the Venetian Marina runs on weekdays only.

One external hazard: Hard Rock Stadium has concerts on December 3, 5, and 6, three stadium nights that will compete for the same cars.