When Los Angeles’s biggest art fair, Art Platform, debuted downtown last fall, the city’s art scene felt very different. The Getty-sponsored Pacific Standard Time had mounted exhibitions all across southern California, and two new fairs, Pulse and Fountain, injected a boost of confidence into the local art market. But P.S.T. has long since ended and both of those satellite fairs have now opted to sit out L.A. this year. All of which means that Art Platform is going it alone for its second edition, September 28-30 -- and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

For starters, the emphasis on local art is no longer a curatorial constraint. The fair has stopped requiring that all exhibitors incorporate at least some kind of California-oriented work into their booths. “We had that policy because of P.S.T.,” said fair director Adam Gross. “Now we’re broadening our focus from the L.A. and California art scene to an ultimately international framework.” Gross pointed to L.A.’s strategic advantage as a transportation hub for the Pacific Rim, which is home to burgeoning art scenes in places like China, Russia, and Central America.

Which points to the second major change at this year’s fair. It has abandoned its former base at the L.A. Mart, owned by parent company Merchandise Mart Properties Inc. which also runs the Armory Show in New York, for the historic Barker Hangar at the Santa Monica Airport. The motive for the move was to increase accessibility for international visitors. (It remains to be seen if it will decrease accessibility for local visitors, however, thanks to the coinciding “Carmageddon” closure of Highway 405.)

The 35,000-square-foot Hangar is technically a step down in size from its former 50,000-square-foot venue, but organizers are setting up tents outside to nearly double the exhibition space. The number of galleries remains about the same—81 this year to 75 in 2011, with newcomers including New York’s bitforms, Hirschl & Adler, and Fred Torres Collaborations. A few others have jumped ship, such as Perry Rubenstein Gallery, Haunch of Venison, Joshua Liner Gallery, Andrew Kreps, and Kavi Gupta Gallery.

Beyond the booths, private jet company XOJET has commissioned Steve Roden to install a soundscape inside its Challenger 300, open for VIP access on opening night; Alejandro Diaz presents his “Artist Rising Above it All” airplane and banner performance on September 27 at 6pm; curator Paul Young projects works by up-and-coming digital artists at spots around the fair; and Whitestone Gallery presents a special exhibition of work by Gutai founding member Chiyu Uemae.

And, of course, there will be parties. Catharine and Jeffrey Soros are hosting a gala for the nonprofit Los Angeles Nomadic Division on September 29, while The Colony is home to this year’s kickoff event, a benefit for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on September 27.

As for being the only fair in town, Gross says he’s not too worried. The decision to sit out this year was not, at least for Fountain co-producer Elizabeth Tully, an economic one. In an email, Tully said that the tiny fair’s stint in L.A. was a “milestone,” but the organization chose to pass this year in order to “focus on our development as an organization, while strengthening ties with our most loyal markets in Miami and New York.”

“We did enjoy working with Pulse last year and are sorry it didn’t work out this year,” Gross said. “In the long run, it would be nice to have other fairs, to have a sense of destination for L.A., but what we’re doing this year, the exhibitors and scale of what we’re doing, proves that you can have a meaningful, quality art fair in L.A.”

To see preview works from this year's Art Platform — Los Angeles, click on the slide show.