Miami’s Long Run to Art Week
Miami’s Fall for the Arts season fills the weeks before Art Week with museum shows, music and public art. Here’s how to plan it, what it costs, and when to book for Art Basel.
Every December, Miami’s art calendar collapses into a single week of fairs, parties and sold-out hotels. The Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau (GMCVB) is now marketing the weeks before it. The second edition of Fall for the Arts runs from 1 October to 6 December 2026, bundling museum shows, performance, film, music and public art into one destination-wide season that ends with Miami Art Week (30 November to 6 December).
For advisors, that reframes the sell. Art Basel Miami Beach runs from 4 to 6 December at the Miami Beach Convention Center, after invitation-only private days on 2 and 3 December, according to the fair. Clients who want the fair need to be booked now. Clients who want the art without the week’s crowds and pricing have six programmed weeks to travel in first.
What’s still to come before Art Week
The GMCVB’s season highlights give a usable structure for the weeks that remain:
- Now to 21 November: the Miami Beach Classical Music Festival’s Celestia, A Symphony of Lights, pairs a live orchestra with 360-degree projection mapping on select dates. Miami City Ballet’s season is under way, including works by George Balanchine.
- 29 October to 5 November: Miami Film Festival GEMS previews critically acclaimed films ahead of the main Miami Film Festival.
- From 1 November: the Wynwood Walls launches an artist-in-residence program (to 31 January 2027). The first residency recreates the Los Angeles studio of Neo-Expressionist painter Danny Minnick, and visitors can watch him work during open-studio hours.
- 12 to 22 November: the Doral International Art Fair runs 12 to 15 November, Miami Beach’s “No Vacancy” program turns hotels into exhibition spaces from 12 November, and Miami Book Fair (15 to 22 November) brings more than 400 authors, according to the bureau.
- Art Week: Spectrum Miami and Red Dot Miami return to Mana Wynwood Convention Center from 2 to 6 December for their 16th and 21st editions, with more than 1,000 artists and 280 exhibitors, the organizers say. The ReefLine, a seven-mile underwater public sculpture park, unveils Phase 2 during Art Week: Heart of Okeanos by British artist Petroc Sesti, a large-scale rendering of a blue whale’s heart designed to become a reef over time.
The long-run museum shows
The strongest argument for travelling outside Art Week is that the headline exhibitions run well beyond it.
At the Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), Basquiat: Figures, Signs, Symbols runs until 6 June 2027, according to the museum. The show brings together 10 works by Jean-Michel Basquiat from the collection of Miami resident Ken Griffin, which the GMCVB says are valued at US$500 million.
Read next · DestinationsMelbourne Cup Week 2026: A Practical Race-Day Guide2 min →The Bass in Miami Beach has three exhibitions open: Yuko Mohri: Unviolated Imperfection (until 30 May 2027), Amalia Pica: Lecturas Posibles (until 12 February 2027) and Sarah Zapata: Against a State of Malevolence (until 28 February 2027).
On the performing-arts side, the Adrienne Arsht Center’s season includes Buena Vista Social Club, a Chucho Valdés 85th birthday celebration and An Evening of Songs and Stories With Patti Smith. Along Lincoln Road, new public installations include student-designed “Deco Portals”, Oluwatobi Adewumi’s The Stories We Carry in November and Gillie & Marc’s A Wild Race Against Time in December.
Why the timing matters
The bureau counts 23 museums and hundreds of galleries in the destination, and says Fall for the Arts is meant to spotlight local voices as well as the December fairs. The trade read is simpler: the institutions that anchor Art Week itineraries are open and programmed in the weeks before it, without competing with fair-week demand. A PAMM or Bass visit, a Wynwood open-studio session or a night at the Arsht is a better product when the city isn’t running at fair-week capacity.
Looking further ahead, Aman’s first Florida hotel, in Miami Beach beside the Faena District, now says it will open in 2028. It’s in our tracker of new hotels opening, and our Miami hotel watch covers the rest of the city’s pipeline.
Planning a trip
When to go. For the museums without the fair, aim for late October to mid-November. One weekend stands out: on Thursday 19 November, PAMM is free after 5 p.m. and The Bass is free from 6 to 9 p.m. for its monthly Third Thursday, and the next day Miami Book Fair’s Street Fair opens downtown (20 to 22 November, free to walk in, according to the fair).
If December is full, the 50th Art Deco Weekend runs along Ocean Drive between 5th and 12th streets from 15 to 17 January 2027. The GMCVB lists it as a free festival. It is one of the ideas in our winter trip list for Canadians.
Getting around. PAMM is downtown at 1103 Biscayne Boulevard, between the Arsht Center and the Kaseya Center. The Bass is at 2100 Collins Avenue in Miami Beach. Within Miami Beach, the city’s trolley is free and runs four routes from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily, about every 20 minutes, according to the City of Miami Beach.
Crossing the border. Canadians heading south should read our guide to what has changed for Canadians visiting the US in 2026.
What it costs
Prices as published by each organization, in US dollars:
- Pérez Art Museum Miami: US$18 adults; US$14 seniors (62+), students and youth (7 to 18); free for children 6 and under and for everyone on Thursdays after 5 p.m. Open Monday and Thursday to Sunday, closed Tuesday and Wednesday, and open to 9 p.m. on Thursdays. The museum says tickets can sell out and recommends buying online.
- The Bass: US$15 general; US$8 seniors (65+), students and youth (7 to 18). Open Wednesday to Sunday, noon to 5 p.m.; closed Monday and Tuesday.
- Art Basel Miami Beach: tickets are sold online through the fair’s own ticket shop. Guided tours run with ArtNexus and are booked separately; admission is not included.
- Hotel tax: Miami Beach adds a resort tax of 4 per cent on room rents and 2 per cent on food and drink, on top of sales tax, according to the city.
Quick answers
When is Miami Art Week 2026? 30 November to 6 December, according to the GMCVB. Art Basel’s VIP days are 2 December (from 4 p.m.) and 3 December; its public days are 4 to 6 December.
Can you go to Art Basel without an invitation? Yes. The public days, 4 to 6 December, are ticketed and open to anyone who buys online.
Does Fall for the Arts need a ticket? No. It is a season, not a pass. Each museum, show or festival is booked separately, and several are free on set days.
More for advisors
- Mind the closures: PAMM shuts Tuesday and Wednesday, The Bass Monday and Tuesday. Thursday to Sunday covers both.
- Sell 19 to 22 November as a culture weekend: free evening museum hours on Thursday, then the Book Fair’s Street Fair.
- Group clients at Art Basel: ArtNexus caps public-day tour groups at 12, and some galleries refuse groups.
- Quote the 4 per cent Miami Beach resort tax and sales tax on top of room rates.
Sources
- Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau, “Greater Miami and Miami Beach Announces This Year’s Fall for the Arts”, press release via DCI, 30 September 2026
- Art Basel Miami Beach, visitor information and opening hours
- Pérez Art Museum Miami, exhibitions
- The Bass, exhibitions
Where to stay near Miami Beach
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Casie Stewart is Senior Editor at Not An Atlas, usually found in a Toronto coffee shop in a cute outfit, laptop open, coffee in hand and phone (always) within arm's reach. Some of her warmest memories are of fishing and camping in New Zealand's Bay of Islands with her family as a kid. She's a New Zealand citizen, and it will always feel like home. She takes the window seat (she wants to see the world, not the beverage cart), swears by her Trtl travel pillow (comfort over cool, always) and orders whatever the locals are having. Waking up to the sounds of the rainforest in the middle of the Costa Rican jungle is her “this is why I travel” moment, and Arizona's deserts and sunsets are where she'd go back tomorrow. She covers the places, people, food and festivals that make a destination memorable. Friends say funny, effervescent and organized. Her mum adds cuddly. Next stop: Bali.
