THIS year's Frieze Art Fair went head-to-head for the first time with London 's contemporary auctions. The fair, which ran from October 13th to the 17th, has restructured the seasonality of the art market to the extent that "Frieze Week" has become art-world shorthand for mid-October. "It's nice if others use the term, but we don't. It's not right to brand other people's efforts," explains Matthew Slotover, the fair's co-director. "In emerging territories [eg, China], the auctions have gone in first and warmed the market," he adds. "But in London, the October sale season was heated up by the fair."

Frieze sees 60,000 visitors, but only 5,000 of them are VIPs, roughly 2,000 of whom buy art. As usual, the fair featured new work by living artists, with a few fun exceptions such as the early 20th-century drawings of Francis Picabia and the 1970s photographs of Sigmar Polke on the Michael Werner stand. Visually, Frieze saw more large-scale works and fewer gewgaws for one's pied-a-terre. For prices, the "sweet spot" was below $100,000, according to Josh Baer, author of the Baer Faxt, an art industry newsletter.

Market intelligence is anecdotal because business varies dramatically among the 173 galleries that participate, and Frieze does not collate sales data for public consumption. Instead, it maintains the polite etiquette of its eponymous art magazine, which avoids discussions of anything as crass as finances. Hiscox Ltd, the insurer of 40% to 50% of the stands, estimated that the big tent in Regent's Park contained $375m worth of art, according to Bloomberg's Scott Reyburn. How much of it was sold is anybody's guess.

British gallerists laid claim to the most remarkable turnovers. Read on...

• IFPDA Print Fair, New York, NY: Nov 4-7

• Art Los Angeles Contemporary: Los Angeles, CA: Jan 27-30, 2011

• Art Dubai: Dubai, UAE, March 16-19, 2011