"If I see something, I call Randall, send him a picture and might put it on reserve," explains Lana. "I’ll do the same for a client in New York. Even if they’re not ready to make the move yet, they like the fact that we’ve discovered an artist that they should consider."

KEEP THE SCHEDULE BLANK. When Connecticut architect Roger Ferris, a passionate collector of works by artists like Eric Fischl, Jenny Holzer and Damien Hirst, attends the fairs, he leaves his datebook at home. "I’m loath to attend the collateral events that are more social," he says. "You need to be well-rested to take the fair in. The experience of going from booth to booth is exhilarating. You get your spirits up and then get dumped. It’s a roller-coaster ride." Ferris is careful to leave evenings open for dinners with artists, which, he says, gallerists frequently arrange at the last minute because "artists are often reclusive carpet beetles. If it’s impromptu, they’ll show up."

WORK THE LECTURE CIRCUIT. Twenty-five years ago, London dealer and now famed fair organizer Brian Haughton and his wife, Anna, had the genius to create a ceramics fair with an academic component: lectures. "We wanted the best dealers, showing the best items, with the world’s top curators in attendance," says Brian Haughton. The museum professionals did not come just to shop but also to exchange original research in the seminars which are open to the public, creating an exciting climate for the porcelain collector. Today London’s International Ceramics Fair & Seminar is one of the most convivial fairs, where even new collectors can rub elbows with curators from the Louvre and Victoria & Albert museums and readily establish relationships with the category’s top dealers.

GO CLUBBING. And then what happens when those collectors of soft-paste French porcelain find one another at the annual ceramics fair? They form a club. The French Porcelain Society, the English Ceramic Circle and other collecting clubs will typically schedule their annual dinners to coincide with their major fair. Join a collecting club, and you’ll benefit from your fellow members’ wisdom and expertise at navigating shows. Museum clubs such as the Whitney Young Contemporaries or MoMA’s Junior Associates have groups that travel to the major fairs. Journey with them and you’ll typically receive a curator-led VIP tour and collecting advice.

MEET THE ARTISTS. More than ever, artists are showing up at fairs, not just to check out the huge concentration of art but to meet their collectors. At PULSE Miami this year, fair-goers will be able to buy art not from a dealer, but directly from the artist at Geisai Miami, the first American branch of a fair model that Japanese artist Takashi Murakami founded six years ago in Japan. Unlike the 1,000 emerging artists who might be found at Geisai Tokyo, the Miami launch will feature 20.

As Lana and Beale have learned, meeting an artist can result in getting first crack at new pieces, conceiving exciting commissions and forging enduring relationships. The designers discovered glass artist Rob Wynne, who shows at Scope Miami. Since then, the couple has commissioned numerous pieces from Wynne, including a hand-poured, 13-foot mirrored-glass installation to illuminate a hallway. Twenty-eight-year-old Argentinean artist Santiago Rubino’s pen-and-ink drawings were another find. The team included Rubino and Wynne’s works in a much-praised, art-filled Kips Bay Showhouse installation, which ended up photographed in The New York Times this past April.

AND IF YOU ONLY HAVE TWO DAYS... "I would use one for the fair and the other for galleries," says Plummer, describing the method she applies if her time is limited when visiting fairs like Maco Mexico or Art Moscow. "I hear collectors who say, ‘I’m going to the main three and then I’ll wait to hear the word on the street about the others,’" Allen reports. But if you’re looking for emerging artists, you might want to work in reverse, focusing on the satellites.