After two weekends, five festival stops, a string of club shows on the side and countless bottles of Grey Goose, the Stereosonic tour is over for another year. With record numbers rolling up around the country and mostly well-behaved weather, summer arrived in epic fashion. Whether you were stationed at the mainstage, in amongst it at the Bass Arena, or roaming free, everyone’s going to have a different standout.

Starting at the top of the poster, Armin van Buuren inhabited the lead role with signature ease. With the flame-throwers and C02 cannons going off around him, the trance don proved he’s as comfortable in festival mode as he is going all night. If Armin was the mainstage’s seasoned pro, the breakout star had to be Avicii. The young Swede has his festival set finely-tuned by now, and the sea of hands in the air for Levels more than matched anything in this video.

While the mainstage pulled the biggest numbers (you didn’t want to be on at the same time as LMFAO), highlights were spread right around the festival. Returning to helm his own arena for a second year running, Carl Cox once again proved his stature as the DJ’s DJ, while his cohort of Andy C, Pretty Lights, Dirty South and co. all commanded dedicated dancefloors.

With his dazzling light show and motion sensors, Sub Focus proved to the fans that he wasn’t all talk. The Bass Arena also got hot and heavy to Caspa & MC Dynamite, The Gaslamp Killer and Datsik, while trance loyalists could camp out all day with the likes of Dash Berlin and BT.

Our picks for ‘Dark Horses’ of the festival? The Drop The Lime band was appropriately slick, Deetron reasserted his next-level talents, and Zombie Nation pummelled some minds in live mode.

Before getting stuck into the photo galleries, we’ll leave you with this final word from Carl Cox to inthemix.tv in Sydney: “Years ago, the media was saying dance music is dead; the superstar DJ is done, that’s it. And here we are in 2011, and you can’t get any more people in this place. It’s unbelievable.”

Stereosonic Sydney

Stereosonic Perth

Stereosonic Melbourne

Stereosonic Adelaide

Stereosonic Brisbane

Sideshows

So how about the sideshows? Thursday 1 December 2011 was not your usual weekday in Sydney. Following Stereosonic’s stellar showing out at Sydney Showgrounds, some of the line-up’s biggest drawcards came back to town for a shot at the clubs.

Instead of falling asleep in front of the TV, Sydney-dwellers could choose between Armin van Buuren in his most intimate Australian show for many years, Kaskade helping launch the inthemix iPhone app for 250 lucky fans at The Backroom, a heaving session with Pretty Lights at Oxford Art Factory or Dirtybird boss Claude VonStroke stretching out in the surrounds of the Spice Cellar. Then, with hangovers spread across the city, it was time to back up for Avicii at Home Nightclub.