The Colorado Springs Philharmonic plays Edward Scissorhands for Halloween weekend

The orchestra's 100th season hits the Pikes Peak Center with a film-score Pops concert Friday and Saturday at 7:30.

Some cities do Halloween with a haunted house. Colorado Springs gets a full orchestra and a pale kid with scissors for hands. The Colorado Springs Philharmonic brings Edward Scissorhands to the Pikes Peak Center on Friday, October 30 and Saturday, October 31, both at 7:30 p.m., as part of its Philharmonic Pops series, according to the orchestra's event page and the Pikes Peak Center listing.

It's a film-score night: the movie on the screen and the Philharmonic supplying the music. If you've only ever heard that soundtrack through a TV speaker, this is the version where it fills a hall built for exactly this kind of sound.

The timing is not subtle, and that's the point. Friday is the warm-up; Saturday is Halloween itself, which makes it one of the few nights of the year when showing up to the symphony in costume is a reasonable decision rather than a cry for help. Check the orchestra's page before you commit to anything elaborate, but the date was clearly chosen with the holiday in mind.

The 100th season, opened up to people who'd never call themselves classical fans.

This weekend also lands inside a milestone. The 2026–27 run is the orchestra's 100th season, as FOX21 reported when the lineup was announced, and the film concert is one of the dates on that schedule. A century in, the Philharmonic is the kind of local institution that plays this town far more than anywhere else, and the Pops series is the part of the season built to pull in people who would never call themselves classical fans.

The room is part of the draw. The Pikes Peak Center sits at 190 S. Cascade Ave. downtown and was built in 1982 as a regional entertainment and cultural center, part of a plan to revitalise that stretch of the city, according to Venue Coalition. Most of the Philharmonic's big nights happen here, and a sold-out Pops show in that hall has a different energy than the orchestra's more formal evenings: more popcorn-movie anticipation, fewer people checking the program notes.

If you go, give yourself time downtown. Halloween Saturday will be busy on Cascade, and a 7:30 curtain means parking and dinner need to happen early. Tickets are available through the Philharmonic's event page and the Pikes Peak Center.

A hundred years is a long time for any orchestra to keep a city's attention. Spending the 100th Halloween weekend on a Tim Burton fairy tale feels like a pretty good way to keep doing it.

Sources: Colorado Springs Philharmonic: Edward Scissorhands (csphilharmonic.org); Pikes Peak Center: Philharmonic – Edward Scissorhands (pikespeakcenter.com); FOX21: Colorado Springs Philharmonic announces 100th season (fox21news.com); Venue Coalition: Pikes Peak Center (venuecoalition.com); Edward Scissorhands (Wikipedia) (en.wikipedia.org); Pikes Peak Center (Wikipedia) (en.wikipedia.org)