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 21 satellite fairs counting on spillover crowds, attention and spending from Art Basel Miami Beach, the country's largest contemporary art show.

No other major art fair boasts as many satellite events as does Art Basel Miami Beach, which opens to VIPs Wednesday afternoon and to the public Thursday. And while much of the art industry will focus on the sales pace from Basel's traditional big spenders, fairs such as Aqua fret that a declining economy won't leave enough excess spending to support all the side shows.

''This will be an interesting year to see what the final results are. . . . My feeling is there will be a contraction,'' said Nick Korniloff, director for this week's Art Miami fair. ``The question is: Is the landscape over-saturated by art and art fairs that aren't wanted?''

A shakeout in the satellite scene could redefine the very nature of what South Florida considers ''Art Basel,'' which now serves as an umbrella term for the string of fairs, gallery shows, parties and exhibits throughout Miami and Miami Beach that have sprung up around the official event.

A LARGE UMBRELLA

More than 800 exhibitors participate in non-Basel events, triple the 220 galleries renting space at the actual Basel show at the Miami Beach Convention Center, according to a fair roster maintained by Miami Beach.

That sort of ratio doesn't exist anywhere else on the global circuit of art fairs, where a few side shows typically compete with the main event, according to circuit veterans.

''No other city really has what Miami has,'' said Alexis Hubshman, founder of the Scope fair in Miami, Basel's longest-running satellite event. ``It's an anomaly. I don't know if it's good, but it's an anomaly.''

The growth of the satellite side of Basel week surged with the rest of the economy this decade.

Only Scope, then housed in South Beach's Townhouse Hotel, vied for attention when Art Basel Miami Beach debuted in 2002 as the winter adjunct to its namesake summer show in Basel, Switzerland.

Four years later, 11 satellite fairs orbited Basel Miami Beach. That number nearly doubled in 2007, with 20 non-Basel shows on the schedule, according to Miami Beach's Special Events office.

Last year the annual Art Miami fair dropped its January dates in order to open the same week as Art Basel. Art Miami is one of several satellites taking place this year on lots once slated to house condominium towers at the Midtown Miami complex.

''I would compare it to an art village, similar to the Olympic Village,'' Korniloff said. ``There are tents on every corner. It's amazing.''

This year brought signs of a shrinking art economy, as satellites saw turnout drop. Art Miami hoped to have 115 galleries but ended up with 96. Fountain Art, an irreverent fair in a Wynwood warehouse, went from 14 galleries last year to seven.

Craig Robins runs the only satellite event with an official tie to Art Basel Miami Beach. In 2007, the Swiss company that owns Basel, Messe Schweiz, bought a minority stake in Robins' Design Miami two years after it launched during Basel week.

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