Woodstock was a four-day festival that defined a generation. The hirsute hordes gathered in upstate New York to prove that rock music was more than a fad; it was an industry that could assemble 500,000 people in a remote location and leave a lasting impact on consumer culture—for better or worse.

Art Basel Miami Beach, which opens this week, has done something similar for the art world. Launched in 2002, Miami Basel, as everyone who goes calls it, took a recondite business and made it hip, visible, and exciting. Its success has signaled the dawn of the Age of Acquirers.

There are far older and more significant art fairs—pretty much all of which took place this year, including Art Basel, in Switzerland; Documenta, which happens in Germany every five years; and the Venice Biennale. Miami Basel, which is up to 200 dealers from an original 175, is still only two-thirds the size of its Swiss parent, and with an estimated 40,000 attendees, it draws fewer than 15 percent as many visitors as the Biennale.

But Miami Basel outshines the world’s other art fairs in its accessibility—and its social calendar. Aside from the main event, there are 23 ancillary shows, such as Art Positions, for which temporary galleries are set up in converted shipping containers, plus events such as a screening of the 2007 documentary Lou Reed’s Berlin, directed by Julian Schnabel, and a veritable orgy of lavish dinners. Miami Basel is the party school of art fairs. But it doesn’t happen to be a great place to buy art.

For one thing, most of the best works have been presold before the doors open, either during exclusive V.I.P. viewings or long before the art even arrives in South Florida. And what’s left is hawked with high-pressure sales tactics.

“I had a collector who told me she sat down recently to evaluate her collection,” says Lisa Dennison, executive vice president at Sotheby’s and former director of the Guggenheim Museum. “She said, ‘Almost everything I don’t like I bought under the pressure of an art fair, where the dealer said we’ll hold this for you for 10 minutes.’ ”

“There seems to be a fair-centric desperation,” agrees Todd Levin, curator of the Sender Collection, a contemporary art collection owned by hedge fund manager Adam Sender and his wife, Leni. “Everyone is pressed up against the glass at 11:59:59. And when they open the doors, it’s like wildebeests trying to cross the river while the crocodiles snap at them.”

Events like Miami Basel have become so important to dealers that artists are intentionally creating works that will stand out in this supercharged atmosphere. Collectors call this wall power—big paintings with strong colors and simple effects that register better at a distance and are easier to understand in the 10 minutes the dealer gives you to decide. But connoisseurs tend to see it as second-rate stuff not worth owning for the long run.

Despite its flaws, Miami Basel is very good for someone intent on learning how to become a big-time art collector. Don Rubell, a former obstetrician who, with his wife, Mera, is an influential Miami collector, says, “I went to Basel, Switzerland, for 25 years, and no collector ever invited me into their home.” By contrast, the center of the social whirl that is Miami Basel consists of locals showing off their holdings. Martin Margulies, Debra and Dennis Scholls, Norman Braman, Craig Robins, and Carlos and Rosa de la Cruz have all been role models, making their large, trailblazing collections available for public viewing. They will host some of the fair’s best events, including the opening of “Red Eye,” an exhibition of works  from the Rubell family’s collection by Los Angeles artists.

Rubell says it took him and his wife 15 years to penetrate the art world—15 years of travel and museum going, 15 years of meeting dealers and artists, and 15 years of generally proving their mettle. It was a hazing ritual that the Rubells don’t want new collectors to have to repeat, which is why in 2000, upon hearing that Art Basel wanted to establish an American fair, Mera mounted a campaign to highlight Miami as a crossroads between North and South America and a convenient spot accessible to both the East and West coasts.

Miami Basel ignited a rebirth of the art fair around the U.S.—and the globe. Art fairs such as the Frieze in London and the Armory Show in New York have taken over the contemporary art market in the past five years.

But perhaps Basel has become too successful. The crowds are becoming restless, and it is now fashionable to complain that the fair is too big and skip the main show altogether. “We all complain,” Lisa Dennison says. “The truth of the matter is that there have to be that many parties. You don’t just want a cross section of the elite to be entertained. There need to be a lot of events to keep everyone involved.”

“Everyone” doesn’t appeal to everyone. The art world “has gone from being a community to being an industry,” Levin says, adding that Miami Basel has become a sea of faces. “Eighty or 90 percent of them will disappear back into the woodwork. It’s a very opportunistic thing, and when the opportunity is gone, they’ll be gone.”  

Rubell disagrees. “No matter what the initial motives,” he says, “after a while art collecting becomes a commitment. It’s like sex, it’s never going to go away.”