One week before the Edinburgh Festival Fringe kicks off, The Gilded Balloon's home at Teviot Row House is pretty much an empty shell. The iconic building is the oldest purpose-built student union in the world, originally opened in 1889 and still home to the University of Edinburgh's SU. Its venues range from the capacious 350-seat Debating Hall, the 120-seat Dining Room and the Nightclub, to the Turret and Wee Room with just 50 seats each. For The Gilded Balloon team, the first task is to get in and set up as quickly and efficiently as possible – sound proofing all the spaces, and equipping the venues ready for the opening.

To get a real insight into what it takes to put on the Fringe Festival at The Gilded Balloon, the Spin team sat down with two members of the technical team. Head of Sound Neil McLean has been at The Gilded Balloon for five years, taking over as head of sound in 2012. Technical Manager Andrew Kirby has been working at The Gilded Balloon for nearly as long, at four years. Both represent the archetypal technician's stories, learning at the tough operational sharp end of the business and working their way up through the ranks - demonstrating the Fringe Festival's value as an intensive training ground for technical talent.

Neil and Andrew outlined what it takes to put a successful Festival together:
"We have an established team, and we work really well together – which is essential when you only have 6 days for the load-in and tech period. We hire in pretty much all of the sound and comms equipment, working with Orbital in advance to put together the systems and make sure that it is all prepped up ready for a smooth load-in. Orbital plays a crucial role for us, putting together all of the kit and working alongside us to fit up all of the venue spaces. This year we had Orbital's David Bartholomeusz on site for the fit-up period, and everything went really well – he went away with his head full of bright ideas of how to improve things even further for next year, which is great! For us, it's imperative to keep moving forwards rather then just repeating a formula year-on-year. David made some big changes this year to the room cabling for example, reducing the weight of the multicores considerably and giving us a much neater result.

"2013 was the first year that we had a 100% d&b audiotechnik approach, across front of house and stage monitoring across all the venue spaces, giving us a really consistent sound. It quite simply sounded better than ever this year, and we love the d&b quality. We can rely completely on their quality, extreme reliability and high SPL at 1 metre, all within a very compact package – imperative features for festival operations. We have some difficult spaces to work in – for example, the Debating Hall is an odd-shaped room and it has always presented us with some challenges with regard to acoustical damage from the back wall and balcony area, involving a 1.5 metre section when it reaches the balcony and then a further 4 metres of wall for the sound to reflect off. We worked with Orbital ahead of this year's Festival to try and overcome this, using reference monitors for the first time – d&b did a great job in setting them up, and it has made a huge difference. We also have some challenges with the Dining Room, which hosts a really eclectic mix from solo performances to off-the-wall music! We have tried lots of different d&b combinations before ending up this year with a mix of E8s, configured straight up, and E0s off the sides on uprights to fill in the first couple of rows. Our focus was on getting the imaging right and it has made a great difference – we are not 100% there yet, but it's the best it has ever sounded. The d&b systems are incredibly versatile and can handle pretty much anything we throw at them."

The team tried out the Yamaha CL5 mixing console in 2012, using it again this year for the Debating Hall, backed up by LS9s and Soundcraft M8 desks. From the radiomic perspective, things are done a little differently – as each performer is responsible for hiring in their own kit, with a helping hand from The Gilded Balloon team.

2013 saw a major innovation in this department, as Neil explains:
"This has been a real headache for us in the past, as you can imagine! From kit not turning up to bits missing, compatibility issues – you name it! Orbital introduced the Gilded Balloon easiHire service for us this year – extending their online rental service to create a special portal for our performers to hire in their kit at discounted prices. It was a huge success – and really made life easier for us. The equipment arrived really fast, and worked straight out of the box. We knew it had been properly tested before it was despatched and David Bartholomeusz was available throughout to give guidance where needed. An amazing service."

As the dust settles on the 2013 season, the team is already putting ideas together for the next year, making sure that the lessons learned are noted and the wish list for kit and fine-tuning starts to build! The Gilded Balloon has notched up yet another successful year – bringing together a remarkable mix of performance magic, technical expertise and a unique Festival experience.