Candlelight: A Haunted Evening of Halloween Classics

 Candlelight appears to be a huge network of companies that perform various little concerts around the world via… candle light. Our friends had tickets, but had a family emergency to deal with so they gifted them to us without a lot of time. Which was a little stressful because they have a pretty strict "butts in seats at starting time" policy (honestly, more places and things need to enforce that). Anyway, I am not too familiar with the company, so I don’t know how it always works, but we got a cute little all women quartet of string instruments and they played a lovely mix of spooky movie and TV show themes, as well as some spooky classical music. This particular event was held in the Grand Ballroom of the Grand America Hotel. It was way more fun than expected. It also made up for the fact that we missed An October Evening This year.

Quick Details:

Length: Just a short walk from the parking garage to the Grand Ballroom.
Trail Type: Get to it.
Difficulty: DR2. It is ADA compliant.
Elevation Gain: NA
Restroom: Of course, and it is quite opulent.
Dogs? No.
Other Info: This is a seasonal thing, and requires tickets. But it appears they have various concerts just about every weekend from here to the end of the year at least. Here is the local website (outside link).

To Get Here:

From i15 take the 6th south exit and head east to Main Street hang a left, then at the light, go right and right again into the parking garage. Follow signs for Grand Ballroom Entrance. Note: it does cost money to park here. Alternate options include finding street parking, or taking Trax.

The Adventure:

After we parked, we took the elevator up, and still had a bit of an adventure getting to the Grand Ballroom, but we found it, with just a couple minutes to spare.

The fancy hotel hallway.

I don’t make it a habit of taking pictures in bathrooms… but it was just me, and I wanted to show how freaking big and opulent it is. Wow! I am pretty sure this is almost as big as my house.

While waiting in line for a beer (I was surprised to see a bar option tonight). I took a picture of some of the displays.

Closer view of the chairs.

Like I said, they were really strict about the butts in seats on time. I was a little worried we would get locked out while we waited in line. But, we made it, just in time. Phew! If I ever do one of these again, I am definitely allowing more time. But, for a totally last minute date night, it all worked out in the end.

After we found our seats I took a picture of the stage. wow, that is a LOT of candles!

Before long the show started. They say absolutely no photos until the last act, and even then, no flash!

So… from what I can remember, here is a gist of the songs they played tonight.

Thriller
Beetlejuice Theme
Addams Family Theme (with audience participation)
Munsters Theme 
Exorcist Theme
Halloween Theme
Ghost Busters Theme (with audience participation)
Psycho Theme
Danse Macabre?

Alongside the last song they tossed in a few classical pieces, it was really just wonderful.

They did say that they had set aside the last piece for pictures and video, no flash! (some peeps failed on that end, but I get it. Phones just tend to want to turn it on whenever they feel like, so you have to really pay attention. I tend to, but it still pops up randomly when I am not paying attention.

Here they are playing the last song which was The Nightmare Before Christmas - Main Theme + What's This. They made a fun joke at the Grand America’s Expense saying that this seemed fitting considering all of the Christmas Trees you passed in the hotel to here. We all thought that was funny.

Landis decided to film it for our friends that gifted us the tickets, and well, lets just toss the video on here. They did say it was allowed and said to share it.. for this song.

After they got their much deserved standing ovation, they asked if they could play one more song for us. Fancy way of saying an encore I spose.

The woman with the Cello (man I suck at retaining names, sorry lady) said they wanted to do Hall of the Mountain King, but in the style of what she grew up with, a Classically trained Heavy Metal Band called Apocalyptica. Which made me squee, cause I totally dig them. That was an amazing encore!

Then we got our little touristy photo, thanks to a nice lady, whom we returned the favor for of course.

Fancy.. and also creepy hallway as we make our way back to the parking garage. It kind of makes me think of The Shining.

I wish we had decided to explore more of the fancy hotel, because getting out of the garage was a bit of a cluster… But meh, we made it out and found another small adventure I have been wanting to do so, again, it all works out sometime.

That was a way cool experience! I am super glad we got to see it tonight! The amount of goth people was a little higher than I thought I would see, but hindsight being 2020, I suspect the Venn diagram of goths, people who like spooky music, and people who like classical music probably overlap quite a bit! The atmosphere was great, the quartet were super talented and fun to watch. 10 out of 10 spooky squirrels tonight.

As for difficulty, a super easy meander along a hotel. DR2.

Dogs are not allowed. So be sure to leave Fido home.