COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Columbus Symphony turns the Ohio Theatre into a family Halloween party on Sunday afternoon, Oct. 25, when its Halloween Spooktacular family concert takes the stage at 3 p.m. at 39 E. State St. in downtown Columbus, with pre-concert activities opening at 2 p.m.
The one-hour program is built for children ages 5 to 12 and their families. The orchestra will play John Williams favorites, music from Star Wars and Harry Potter, and spooky orchestral classics including Mussorgsky’s A Night on Bald Mountain, giving young listeners a full-size symphony sound wrapped in stories and characters they already know.
The afternoon starts an hour before the downbeat. Families arriving early can make paper bag monsters and spooky spiders, try a string instrument petting zoo, take selfies with Bee-thoven, pick a musical tattoo, and join ghost bowling, limbo and trick-or-treating in the theatre. A Halloween costume contest is part of the fun, and children are encouraged to come in costume.
Family concerts are the Symphony’s on-ramp for new listeners. The programs are shorter than a Masterworks evening, the hall lights and activities are geared to younger attention spans, and the repertoire leans on film scores and seasonal classics as a bridge to the wider orchestral catalog.
The Spooktacular lands in the middle of the Symphony’s 75th-anniversary season. The same weekend brought a commissioned world premiere, Gregory Spears’s The Mysteries with bass-baritone Davóne Tines, on Friday and Saturday nights at the Ohio Theatre — a pairing that shows the range of a single Columbus weekend, from a brand-new work for seasoned subscribers to a costume party for first-time concertgoers.
For downtown, the concert is one more anchor on a busy final October Sunday, with families already heading to the city center for fall festivals, pumpkin events and the last weekend of Halloween programming before trick-or-treat nights across Franklin County later this week.
Tickets for family concerts are sold through the CBUSArts Ticket Center, online and at the Ohio Theatre box office, and the Symphony advises reserving in advance — the Halloween program is one of the most popular family dates of the season. Seating for the concert is general admission.
Families who miss Sunday still have a full season of family and pops programming ahead at the Ohio Theatre, but the Spooktacular itself is a once-a-year date. Doors for the activities open at 2 p.m. Sunday, and the music starts at 3.