Westbury, NY has spent the last several years doing something a lot of Long Island villages talk about but rarely finish: actually rebuilding its downtown.
New streetscapes went in along Post Avenue, new transit-friendly housing rose up near the train station, and a state-backed revitalization initiative reshaped the corridor around walkability instead of parking lots, according to Governor Hochul’s office.
And right in the middle of that same stretch sits a theater that’s been standing since 1927, and this October, it’s turning into the most atmospheric room on the island.
30 October 2026 18:00
Candlelight, the global concert series known for staging string quartet performances entirely by candlelight, is bringing its Halloween Classics program to Westbury this fall, set inside a Tudor-style auditorium that’s nearly a century older than most of the buildings being built around it.
It’s the ultimate spooky sight, and it’s happening Halloween weekend too. And we have all the details about it and why it’s already proving to be one of the holiday’s biggest events.
The room with the history
The show lands at The Space at Westbury, a venue that first opened its doors on November 10, 1927, as the Westbury Movie Theater.
Opening night featured “Hula” starring Clara Bow. While the theater was one of at least six built across Nassau County by developer Salvatore Calderone, this specific venue was uniquely designed in a medieval Tudor Revival style by architect Douglas Pairman Hall.
The theater flourished for decades before falling into disrepair, eventually closing its doors in 2001 after years of dwindling crowds and mounting safety violations. It sat vacant until a group of investors stepped in to save it from demolition, restoring the original Tudor-style auditorium while wiring in modern lighting and sound.
It reopened in 2013 as The Space at Westbury, a venue that now hosts everything from touring bands to comedy specials inside walls that have already survived nearly a century, right as the neighborhood around it started its own comeback.
It’s a fitting stage for a concert built entirely around atmosphere. No modern arena could replicate what a 1927 movie palace does for free.
What actually happens inside
Candlelight concerts have quietly become one of the most reliable date-night formats in the world, staged everywhere from the Eiffel Tower to Niagara Falls, and this one follows the same blueprint that’s made the series a hit worldwide: thousands of flickering candles, a professional string quartet, and a curated setlist built entirely around the season.
This performance comes from the Highline String Quartet, the same New York ensemble behind the series’ pop and rock reinterpretations, but this time the material skews toward the cinematic and the eerie.
Expect a set list stacked with instantly recognizable horror and thriller themes, including:
- Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”
- John Carpenter’s “Halloween” theme
- Bernard Herrmann’s Prelude from “Psycho”
- Ray Parker Jr.’s “Ghostbusters” theme
- Danny Elfman’s “Beetlejuice” theme and a medley from “The Nightmare Before Christmas”
- Vic Mizzy’s “The Addams Family” theme
- Mike Oldfield’s “Tubular Bells,” the theme from “The Exorcist”
- The theme from “Stranger Things,” performed by S U R V I V E
- Camille Saint-Saëns’ “Danse Macabre” and Mussorgsky’s “Night on Bald Mountain”
The full show runs around 60 minutes, with doors opening an hour before showtime, giving early arrivals time to actually take in the Tudor woodwork and stained-glass detailing before the candles get lit and the lights go down.
A village still mid-comeback
Grab dinner before the show and there’s a good chance it’s inside a building that didn’t exist, or wasn’t open, five years ago.
Westbury’s downtown push has leaned specifically into walkability near the LIRR station, adding new housing and small business space along the same blocks that surround the theater, with more residential development still working its way through approval.
It’s the kind of village where the old and the new are actively overlapping right now, rather than one having fully replaced the other.
That makes a night at The Space feel less like a detour and more like a look at a place mid-transformation, using its oldest building as the anchor for whatever comes next.
Getting there from NYC
The Space at Westbury sits at 250 Post Avenue in Westbury, roughly a 45-minute drive from Manhattan without traffic, or a straightforward trip via the Long Island Rail Road’s Main Line, which stops directly in Westbury and puts the venue within a short walk of the station.
No bridge traffic, no searching for parking near a stadium, just a quick ride out to a part of Long Island most Manhattanites have never actually explored.
Tickets are available now through Fever, with seating assigned first-come, first-served within each pricing zone, so booking early is worth it if a specific spot near the quartet matters to you.
Prices start at only $41.50 at the lowest tier for both time slots scheduled on October 30th (6 pm & 8:30 pm)