As a friend and I made our way to the next set on our Sunday afternoon itinerary at Dekmantel, we were discussing what the festival means to both the artists and the punters. It is, as my friend labelled it, considered something of a "Michelin star" of dance music.

Next year will be Dekmantel's tenth anniversary, although it's so well established and slick in its delivery that it feels like it's been around for longer. There are five days of music–two across several central Amsterdam venues and three in a park southwest of the city–with each stop along the way enjoying a level of attention to detail that makes for an expertly produced, well-oiled machine of a festival. Bringing world-class electronic musicians from home turf and around the globe flocking, at Dekmantel, every artist brings their A-game to the booth. Avalon Emerson nailed it when she said on her Instagram stories: "The Dekmantel hype is real."

On Friday and Saturday, I'd spent the morning wandering around Amsterdam trying to find a raincoat that wouldn't cost me the earth—the weather for the weekend was not looking good. My quest was unsuccessful, and I headed to Amsterdamse Bos armed with a vaguely splash-proof jacket, but the rain showers and dramatic winds followed by pockets of sunshine ended up creating some of the festival's most elated moments.

There was ballroom legend MikeQ's energetic set at The Nest on Friday, where the crowd became increasingly euphoric as the sky brightened behind the booth, the New Jersey artist racing through chopped-up versions of tracks from Beyoncé's Renaissance. Later, light glimmered through the willow tree that hangs over the Selectors stage, as Paquita Gordon's cosmic selections sent the dance floor into a hypnotic groove.

Pictured: MikeQ, The Loop stage

The following day, at The Loop stage after hours of rain, Oceanic's debut live audiovisual show had us swivelling around to exalt the sun which was finally peeking through the clouds. The introductory bars from "Sunshine, Dear" rang out across the crowd at the perfect moment, the screen around the dance floor glowing in a deep orange.

The festival proper, in Amsterdamse Bos park, is spread across eight stages. The site takes over a southern section of the park, which is dotted with leafy trees and paths that take you wandering along overgrown canals. There were a couple of major changes to the site this year. The main stage, now named The Loop, had been stripped back—what once was a looming white structure, with a towering DJ booth and a large disc-shaped roof that covered the centre of the dance floor (it had a glossy spaceship quality)–is now a more simple affair, with a visuals screen wrapping around a circular dance floor. In previous years, Dekmantel's shining white stage had felt like the site's centrepiece, but this year, not so much. A friend commented that perhaps the team wanted to move away from the idea of having a "main stage," which makes sense, given that the lineup is big enough across all stages that there's no immediately obvious pecking order.

The other big switch-up for 2023 was Boiler Room's departure after seven years of streaming live from the festival. This made way for HÖR's debut, the Berlin online radio station that's become renowned for broadcasting from a box-sized studio that looks like a tiled bathroom.

A couple of teething issues aside—I heard about some false starts with the initial setup and concerns about capacity at the beginning of the weekend—The new Radar stage, streamed in collaboration with HÖR, had a multi-levelled, 360-degree dance floor and consistently high energy, which meant many people came away calling it their new favourite stage. The decks were placed in the centre under a corrugated plastic roof and the dance floor, with a raised level around the DJ booth, was surrounded by scaffolding platforms on three sides with hefty speaker stacks in each corner. The result was a full-on, immersive open-air club experience, where I saw the crowd going wild during Mama Snake's pacy, in-your-face Copenhagen techno, Olof Dreijer's buoyant, bubblegum club and Avalon Emerson's second set of the weekend–a seamless and joyful cruise through disparate genres, including edits of a couple of her own tracks with her new band & the Charm.

If Dekmantel were to earn a Michelin star in restaurant terms, it would mean meeting five key criteria: masterful techniques, quality ingredients, synergy of flavour, character and consistency over time. The event's expertly presented bill brought together many of dance music's most exciting and accomplished artists, who performed for the Dekmantel faithful with personality and panache. Regular attendees of the festival will tell you that while Dekmantel has grown, the team's commitment to the same levels of production, design and curation remains consistent. All in all, it's a winning combination.

Pictured: Jeff Mill's Tomorrow Comes The Harvest, Avalon Emerson, Arushi Jain

On Wednesday evening, the first of Dekmantel's programming, Jeff Mills performed Tomorrow Comes The Harvest (his improvised record-turned-show with the late Tony Allen) at Muziekgebouw with keyboardist Jean-Phi Dary, percussionist Prabhu Edouard and flautist Rasheeda Ali. Seated in the sleek wood-panelled auditorium, with walls that occasionally glowed a warm orange, the crowd was transfixed. At one point, I felt my eyes going dry because I'd stopped blinking–anxious not to miss a beat.

This year's Dekmantel was a wet one. During spells of rain, some people at Radar took cover under the scaffolding, while others danced hard come rain or shine. As muddy rain water seeped through the floor onto the dancers below—sometimes visibly dripping down people's faces—it only added to the madness. The only downside was the capacity limit, which led to huge queues. Radar was special once you got in, but I worried that some people might have missed out on the experience if they didn't want to commit to missing an hour of music while waiting in line.

Pictured: The new Radar stage, Octo Octa, Mama Snake

Aurora Halal and DJ Nobu playing together in the colossal UFO I hangar was a match made in heaven. The screen behind the decks displayed inky visual mapping images of the duo at work, while they guided the crowd on a spellbinding trip through eerie and otherworldly techno.

Pictured: Aurora Halal back-to-back DJ Nobu, UFO I, Yazzus

Selectors is Dekmantel's most beguiling stage. Surrounded by trees and largely covered by the hanging branches of an old willow, the hazy dance floor is illuminated by electric blue LED strips that fall from the tree and wiggle above the booth. A large wooden bookshelf stands behind the decks—in previous years, the shelves were filled with vinyl, but this year, each square was backed with glass in different hues of blue. Montevideo hero DJ Koolt played one of the standout sets on this stage, bringing the energy to fever pitch with his blend of growling basslines, rolling grooves and trancey synth lines, including the snarling tones of Continuous Cool's "Automatic."

Pictured: The Selectors stage, Paquita Gordon, DJ Koolt, Rey Colino back-to-back Roza Terenzi

mad miran was one of the stars of the show. Her first set, at the Connects stage on Saturday afternoon, consisted of tracks from exclusively women producers (she made a sign on her phone and put it in front of the decks for everyone to see), and her second–a back-to-back with upsammy on the Sunday–had The Nest crowd practically hanging from the rafters. "It's like something from Transformers!" a friend texted me from across the dance floor, as the duo delivered mutant club sounds like Ebb's "Blue Energy Drink (feat. J.D. Loom)" and Jega's "Nausicaa."

As part of Thursday's conference programme, a collaboration between Dekmantel and Resident Advisor, Italian techno maestro Donato Dozzy sat down for an hour to discuss, and play snippets of, some of his most influential records. One of these was Giorgio Moroder's 1978 track "Chase," which he described as "like a falling star on my brain." I came away from Dekmantel with many new falling star moments—sets that surprised me, filled my heart and made me want to arrive home and disappear straight into a Discogs black hole.

We've compiled a YouTube playlist with some of our favourite tracks from Dekmantel 2023. Listen here.

Pictured: Donato Dozzy, Salome in conversation with Souhayla Ou-Oumar, mad miran back-to-back upsammy, FLOHIO, production workshop with Martyn, Carista