Gilded Balloon is back in Festival mode at Teviot - Karen Koren

In fact, Edinburgh is undergoing a big change into Festival mode, with the Edinburgh International Festival, The Edinburgh Festival Fringe, The Tattoo, The Book Festival, The Edinburgh Film Festival all preparing for their individual events throughout the whole of August.

Teviot is home to one of the city's oldest bars, The Library Bar. It will also host Gilded Balloon, one of Scotland’s leading festival companies

This is the most stressful time to get all the venues built, seats going in, sound and lighting, signposting and all posters covering the venues and the city. It takes nearly a month to put together all the elements and the production, technical staff, carpenters and crew are hard at work from morning until night, proper breaks permitted, of course.

This year is different as after nearly three years of refurbishment we are back in our home of Teviot Row House, now known as Teviot, the oldest student union in the UK and there have been huge improvements.

We orginally had nine venues in Teviot, the newly renovated building meant that we lost three of these in order to make room for the new bar café that’s been built at the back of the building with a new entrance from Charles Street Lane.

We therefore have lost a good number of seating capacity since the refurb. We lost the Nightclub, the Sportsmans and the Balcony. We have managed to build replacements, but not quite as big;, they are the Den, the Lounge and the Nook. It remains to be seen how this will impact on the building and the shows.

Luckily we still have the same Debating Hall (though 40 fewer seats), Dining Room, Billiard Room, Wine Bar, Turret and Wee Room. We are excited to open our doors next Wednesday, fully finished and fitted out and discover how the new improved spaces work.

Gilded Balloon was first in Teviot at the Festival in 2001 and it replaced the Cowgate principal venue the following year after a huge fire destroyed the original Gilded Balloon.

I’ve had so many amazing experiences during our Teviot years. In the early years the fire alarm would regularly go off and everyone would be evacuated from the building.

We got the comedians to put on impromptu shows in Bristo Square until everyone would be allowed back in the building. Some of the best have performed at Teviot over the years and I look forward to it becoming even better in the future.

Welcome to the greatest Arts Festival in the world!