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• Hotels cut rates for Art Basel
• Art Basel kicks off with Design Miami, satellite fair openings

Art Basel satellite shows likely to struggle this year

To sell out for Art Basel week, the Aqua Hotel first needs to clear out most of its beds.

Empty rooms are a must for the nearly four dozen art dealers transforming the South Beach hotel into the Aqua Art fair, where visitors can browse ironic ink sketchings in Room 117 and contemporary Chinese sculpture in Room 216.

Galleries pay $7,000 for a 250-square-foot room at Aqua, one of more than 20 satellite fairs counting on spillover crowds, attention and spending from Art Basel Miami Beach, the country's largest contemporary art show.

Art Basel sales show slowdown in tough economic year

The recession sculpted Art Basel Miami Beach into a humbler version of itself this week, with almost half of the galleries reporting drops in sales.

A Miami Herald survey of dozens of exhibitors at the Basel show and surrounding fairs found only 16 percent seeing sales growth, while about a third said sales were flat with two more days to go. Nearly a fifth of the galleries surveyed reported sales down at least 30 percent compared with last year.

''People are more careful in pulling out their checkbook than last year,'' Achim Moeller said as he worked the Basel booth rented by Moeller Fine Art in New York.

Art Basel lacks usual hotel crunch

Miami Beach still will be the center of the art world for the first weekend in December. But people don't seem willing to pay as much to be there this year.

With the economy in retreat, hotels that usually are sold out for Art Basel week still have rooms to sell. And while the country's largest contemporary arts show still commands premium room rates, some hotels are rolling back prices for the big event.

Even so, organizers say they're not seeing the fallout in demand that hit rival art shows this fall as the financial crisis roiled collectors' budgets and outlooks.

Art Basel: For starry-eyed art collectors, a passion to have and to hold

She stands just off the dining room of Alicia Hancock Apfel's Upper East Side house. The Little Red Girl by A-list sculptor William King is a kindred soul and a testament to Apfel's longtime affinity for art collecting.

The passion started to simmer when Apfel was about 10. She became so enamored of King's playful red vinyl sculpture when she spotted it in a Bal Harbour gallery that her parents bought it for her as a surprise. But things really boiled over after Art Basel Miami Beach, the largest contemporary art fair in the country, put down stakes in 2002.

''I remember when you had to leave Miami to see great art,'' says Apfel, 44, a lawyer whose 1938 three-bedroom is filled with vintage touches and, for the last few years, more and more artworks to keep her and The Little Red Girl company.

Dealers, artists preparing for the big show

It's early yet, but Miami art dealer Fred Snitzer has a lot of work to do in preparation for December's onslaught of art fairs, museum exhibitions, gallery shows, special events and all-night cocktail parties.

Snitzer still must curate his gallery's booth inside the Miami Beach Convention Center for Art Basel Miami Beach, the annual fair that carries enough heft in the art world to attract an orbit of more than a dozen independent fairs.

He also has to prepare his Wynwood showroom for the thousands of art collectors, museum directors, curators, critics and others who will be in town the first weekend of December.