How Britain's premier contemporary-art event will fare following London's action-packed summer — which opened with record-setting contemporary sales before veering into riots and a stock-market nosedive — is anyone's guess. Whatever happens, though, Frieze Art Fair co-director Matthew Slotover counsels taking a long view: "Most artists, gallerists, collectors, and curators are into art for life."

Frieze (October 13–16) is treating its 175 exhibitors to a spiffed-up design and brand-new pavilions in Regent's Park courtesy of the London architects Carmody Groarke. First-time participants include Berlin's Johnen Galerie, Paris's Yvon Lambert, and New York's Pace Gallery, which promises haunting ash paintings by Zhang Huan and electrified lighting-field photographs by Hiroshi Sugimoto (around $80,000). Appearing in solo displays are Björn Dahlem, whose sculptures ($21,500 to $28,800) are at Düsseldorf's Sies + Höke, and Matthew Brannon, who has outfitted an imaginary detective's office at the booth of New York's Casey Kaplan (starting at $10,000).

Single-artist shows are the rule at Frame, Frieze's section for galleries less than six years old. Of the 25 booths, 21 will be filled by new-comers; many are from South America, among them Lima's Revolver Galería, Bogotá's Casas Riegner Gallery, and Buenos Aires's Ignacio Liprandi, where delicate watercolors by Pablo Accinelli will be priced from $5,000 to $10,000.

Frieze is known for top-quality extracurricular presentations, and this year's sculpture installation in Regent's Park offers an eclectic mix plucked from participating galleries by curator David Thorp. London's Stephen Friedman Gallery is contributing Tom Friedman's Matisse-inspired "Circle Dance," 2010, which will join an illusionary "shrinking" tower by the Indian artist Neha Choksi, from Project 88, of Mumbai, among other works.

Over in Berkeley Square, the Pavilion of Art & Design London (October 12–16), which recently added tribal works to its usual mix of design and modern and contemporary art, is the weekend's most long-lived alternative event. Since 2009, the venture has gone through a rapid growth spurt, almost doubling the number of exhibitors, to 57 this year, with London's Daniella Luxembourg and Paris's Galerie Natalie Seroussi among the newcomers. Jousse Entreprise, of Paris, is presenting a selection of sleek furnishings by Jean Prouvé; London's Carpenters Workshop Gallery is featuring Sebastian Brajkovic's limited-edition Lathe III bronze chair (€32,000; $46,000); and New York's Todd Merrill has a stainless-steel dandelion puff by Harry Bertoia — the largest the American designer ever made — for $750,000.

This year sees the return of three fairs that debuted in 2010 to fill the gap left by Scope's ongoing "hiatus" plus the shuttering of the emerging-art-focused Zoo:

Sunday (October 13–16) returns to the concrete bunker of Ambika P3. To give more focus to the boothless fair, each of the 20 participating galleries will display works by one or two artists. Frankfurt's Neue Alte Brücke has collaborations between Tim Davies and Simon Fujiwara, and New York’s On Stellar Rays is bringing Brody Condon's CAD sculpture fabricated to look like jade ($12,000).

Moniker (October 13–16), a rabble rouser serving up street art, will be back in Shoreditch with an almost entirely new lineup, including Los Angeles's Le Basse and Cologne’s Able & Baker.

Multiplied Contemporary Editions Fair (October 13–17), sponsored by Christie's and devoted to multiples and editioned prints, will have such veterans as Whitechapel Gallery and White Cube alongside new recruits like Tristan Barbara Editions and Phaidon Editions.

Moving Image (October 13–16) holds its inaugural U.K. edition at Bargehouse, not far from the Tate Modern. The video fair, founded during Armory Week 2011, will host 30 galleries, including Tokyo's Taka Ishii, New York's Ronald Feldman Gallery, and Los Angeles's LTD.

Finally, the 50-artist pop-up exhibition near the British Museum, "New Sensations and the Future Can Wait" (October 11–17), with backing from Saatchi Gallery, is being marketed as London's biggest curated show.