How much of Art Week can a Miami Beach resident see without fair crowds? A good share, starting Thursday, November 12. That's the opening day of No Vacancy, Miami Beach, the City's free juried exhibition, with new work by 12 artists installed in 12 hotels from South of Fifth to Normandy Isle. It runs through December 19. The show is part of the City's Art Week program, but its dates and its map both suit a local. Most of its run falls outside the busiest week of the year, and most of its stops sit along the free trolley's busiest corridor.
The calendar runs well past the art fairs
No Vacancy is on view for 38 days. Art Week Miami Beach covers seven of them, November 30 through December 6, and Art Basel Miami Beach takes the last three, December 4 to 6.
| Window | Dates | Days |
|---|---|---|
| Before Art Week | Nov. 12 to Nov. 29 | 18 |
| Art Week | Nov. 30 to Dec. 6 | 7 |
| After Art Week | Dec. 7 to Dec. 19 | 13 |
That leaves 31 days of the show outside Art Week. The two longer windows also bracket Thanksgiving and the first half of December, when visiting family and friends tend to arrive. Twelve hotels on one free trolley system make an easy outing for guests who would rather not spend a day at a fair.
This is the program's seventh edition, and the City says the call to artists drew 228 applications, a record. Each selected artist receives a $10,000 honorarium to build a work for an assigned hotel. A committee drawn from the City's Art in Public Places Committee, its Cultural Arts Council and the Miami Beach Visitor and Convention Authority chose the artists. Admission is free, according to the Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau's event listing. Last year, WLRN reported that the works were in publicly accessible areas of each hotel and that non-guests could view them.
The map follows Collins Avenue, with one walking stretch
The City's 2026 No Vacancy map shows the 12 stops alongside the trolley routes. Sorted from south to north, they fall into three stretches.
| Stretch | Hotel | Address | Artist and work |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ocean Drive | Marriott Stanton South Beach | 161 Ocean Drive | Marlon Portales, Busco en El Monte Amparo |
| Ocean Drive | Balfour Miami Beach | 350 Ocean Drive | Luján Candria, Living Archive |
| Ocean Drive | Avalon Hotel | 700 Ocean Drive | Morel Doucet, To Bloom Under the Midnight Stars |
| Ocean Drive | The Betsy Hotel | 1440 Ocean Drive | Ricardo E. Zulueta, RISING GLITCH LEVELS |
| Collins, South Beach | The Royal Palm South Beach Miami | 1545 Collins Avenue | Diana Eusebio, Home, Safe |
| Collins, South Beach | Kimpton Surfcomber Hotel | 1717 Collins Avenue | Alex Nuñez, You Cannot Step into the Same Ocean Twice |
| Collins, South Beach | The Shelborne by Proper | 1801 Collins Avenue | Yanira Collado, Converging Timelines/Woven Silhouettes |
| Mid-Beach | Casa Faena | 3500 Collins Avenue | Kevin Arrow, The Magic Is You! |
| Mid-Beach | Hotel Croydon Miami Beach | 3720 Collins Avenue | Justin H. Long, Abyssal Wunderkammer |
| Mid-Beach | Eden Roc Miami Beach | 4525 Collins Avenue | Emmett Moore, Riviera |
| North Beach | Sherry Frontenac Hotel | 6565 Collins Avenue | Gonzalo Hernández, AMERICA |
| Normandy Isle | International Inn on the Bay | 2301 Normandy Drive | Lulu Sanchez, Palm Court Ship: The Jury is Out at the International Inn |
Eight of the 12 hotels are on Collins Avenue or Normandy Drive. The City runs four free trolley routes there: the South Beach Loop, Middle Beach Loop, Collins Express and North Beach Loop. All four operate from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m., seven days a week. The other four hotels are on Ocean Drive, and the published South Beach Loop stops cover Washington Avenue, Collins Avenue and Alton Road but not Ocean Drive. So Ocean Drive is the one stretch of the show you walk.
Ocean Drive works best after dark, on foot
The four Ocean Drive installations run from the Stanton at 161 to The Betsy at 1440. At least two of them are made for evening. Zulueta's RISING GLITCH LEVELS is a video installation projected onto the glowing surface of The Betsy Orb. It combines experimental animation, glitch effects and ambient sound. Doucet's piece at the Avalon reimagines South Florida's tropical flora as what the City's announcement calls "a nocturnal meditation on resilience, cultural memory, diasporic experience and environmental change." At the Balfour, Candria has covered the hotel's windows with translucent photo-based textiles showing native South Florida vegetation. That makes it one of the few works designed to be seen from outside.
There's a third free show on the same walk. Between the Avalon and The Betsy, the City scheduled "Miami Beach Ocean Heroes: From Ocean Rescue to Coastal Guardians" to run from November 5 through February 2027. It's an outdoor exhibit at Galeria Ocean Drive, 1101 Ocean Drive, in Lummus Park, marking 100 years of ocean rescue on Miami Beach.
From The Betsy, the three Collins Avenue hotels are close by. Eusebio's work at the Royal Palm uses textiles, photography and natural dyes. Nuñez has turned part of the Surfcomber into a sculptural environment of printed palms and an iridescent portal, and Collado, at the Shelborne by Proper, layers upcycled paper, wood and textiles into a site-specific installation tracing labor, diaspora and regional histories. All seven South Beach stops fit into one evening on foot. The City lists no viewing hours for the hotels, so a call ahead is wise before a late visit.
Mid-Beach and the north end are a trolley ride
North of 21st Street, the show is spread too far apart to walk, and the trolley takes over. The Middle Beach Loop stops along Collins from 22nd through 43rd streets and runs about every 20 minutes. The Collins Express runs about every 15 minutes, the most frequent of the four routes, and continues north to stops including 65th Street. The North Beach Loop has stops on Normandy Drive at Bay Drive, Rue Versailles, Rue Notre Dame, Rue Bordeaux, Trouville Esplanade and Rue Granville. For riders in Mid-Beach and parts of North Beach, Freebee's free on-demand service connects to the trolley. Freebee runs from 6:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. on weekdays, 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Saturdays and 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Sundays.
A daytime northbound loop runs in this order:
- Casa Faena, 3500 Collins Avenue. Kevin Arrow's immersive installation draws on decades of 35mm film he collected around South Florida.
- Hotel Croydon, 3720 Collins Avenue. Justin H. Long fills an Art Deco display cabinet with a fictional collection of undersea relics.
- Eden Roc, 4525 Collins Avenue. Emmett Moore has sculpted a knotted stainless steel exhaust pipe that reflects on gas-powered machines and obsolescence.
- Sherry Frontenac, 6565 Collins Avenue. Gonzalo Hernández hangs seven jacquard-woven banners spelling A-M-E-R-I-C-A, in colors drawn from South American flags.
- International Inn on the Bay, 2301 Normandy Drive. Lulu Sanchez has built a luminous sculptural arboretum of hand-built palms.
Normandy Isle is the last stop, and the title of Sanchez's piece points back to last year. The 2025 juried prize of $25,000 went to Nathalie Alfonso for BayScape— at the same hotel. The $10,000 People's Choice Award went to Denise Treizman for Wish You Were Here at the Cadillac Hotel & Beach Club, and the winner was decided by an online public vote. This year's prizes total $35,000 again: a $25,000 juried prize and a $10,000 public prize presented by the GMCVB. Last year's winners were announced after the show closed, so visits early in the run count just as much as visits in mid-December.
What changes for the seven days of Art Week
From November 30 to December 6, the show stays the same, but getting around the island changes. These points come from the City's Art Week transportation plan and its public safety page:
- Water taxi. A free water taxi runs every 7 to 9 minutes between Maurice Gibb Memorial Park, 1790 Purdy Ave., and Venetian Marina & Yacht Club in Miami. Hours are 10 a.m. to midnight from November 30 through December 5, and 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. on December 6.
- Shuttles. Dedicated shuttles run every 10 to 15 minutes between the Convention Center and Collins Avenue at 22nd, 32nd and 46th streets. The 46th Street stop is about a block from the Eden Roc. Another route links the Convention Center to Collins at 10th and 11th streets.
- Trolley hours. Service is enhanced from 8 a.m. to midnight, Wednesday, December 2, through Saturday, December 5. Regular hours apply on the other days.
- Venetian drawbridge. The East Venetian Causeway drawbridge is scheduled to stay closed to vessels from 3 to 9 p.m. each day, November 30 through December 6, except for emergency or distressed vessels.
- Construction pause. Non-city construction activity in the City's right of way is suspended for the week, so contractors cannot close roads, sidewalks or lanes.
- Traffic. Police staffing increases December 2 through 6, with work to reduce cut-through traffic in residential areas around the Convention Center and along 41st Street. The City says weekday afternoons are typically the heaviest.
- Alerts. Text MBAlert to 888777 for the City's traffic text alerts.
The Art Week plan is published ahead of the event and may change. Outside that week, the regular trolley schedule of 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily serves the eight Collins Avenue and Normandy Drive stops, and the four Ocean Drive hotels remain a walk.
For residents with guests in town this season, Santiago Ferreira is glad to share how he would plan a No Vacancy evening on Ocean Drive or a daytime trolley loop to Normandy Isle. Schedule a private consultation, and we will tailor the route to the days you have.
