In 2019, Spooktober's program at St Kilda Town Hall included a performance area referred to as the Spooky Stage, used for live music and shows alongside the festival's haunted houses, bar and food vendors. That specific stage no longer runs, and this site has no connection to the festival or any current event using a similar name. What follows looks back at that feature briefly, then moves into Halloween music and performance more broadly, including how to put together a playlist or plan a show-style evening of your own.
What the Spooky Stage was
The stage functioned as the festival's entertainment hub, the place visitors would head to between haunted house sessions for a live act or a themed show rather than a quiet corner to eat or drink. Alongside the Haunted Spirits Bar and Food Truck Park, it formed part of a program built to keep the grounds busy outside the paid attractions themselves. No detailed lineup from the period survives in the material available here, so it is best treated as a historical feature of the festival rather than a specific act or performer worth naming.
How Halloween music and shows generally work
A Halloween-themed stage or performance slot usually pulls from a fairly narrow, recognisable pool: classic horror soundtrack cues, a handful of pop songs with a spooky theme, and either a live band willing to lean into the theme or a DJ building a set around mood rather than genre. Beyond music, "show" can mean anything from a magician or a fire act to a short theatrical scene performed in costume, and festivals often alternate between the two across an evening to keep the pacing varied. None of this requires elaborate production. Lighting, a fog machine and a well-chosen soundtrack do most of the atmospheric work even on a modest stage.
Building your own Halloween playlist
If you are planning a party rather than attending someone else's, a playlist works better built in layers than as a single theme repeated for hours. Instrumental and orchestral horror cues suit the early part of the night when people are still arriving and talking. Recognisable pop and rock songs with a Halloween angle work well once the room fills up and people want something to sing along to. Saving the more theatrical, over-the-top tracks for later in the night, once the crowd is warmed up, tends to land better than opening with them. Keeping a rough runtime of three to four hours in mind, rather than looping a shorter list, avoids the obvious repetition that can flatten the mood.
Watching a show versus putting one on
Attending a festival stage act is mostly a matter of checking set times in advance and arriving early enough to get a decent view, since popular slots can draw a crowd quickly in a tight festival footprint. Organising your own performance element, even something small like a costumed friend doing a scripted scare at the door, benefits from a short rehearsal and a clear sense of where the "performance" starts and ends, so it does not simply blur into general party chatter. Simpler is usually more effective than ambitious when the performers are not professional actors.
Related reading
The What's On hub covers the rest of a typical festival program if music and shows are only part of your evening, and the live entertainment page goes into more detail on performer types such as magicians and fire acts from an earlier festival program. If a themed bar is part of your plans for the night as well, the Haunted Spirits Bar page covers what to check before heading to a Halloween pop-up.
