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We’re halfway to Halloween, but our ghosts roam every day. DYK we keep a ghost light on at Tampa Theatre every night? 👻The tradition of a “ghost light” onstage is an old theater tradition usually carried on by live venues and Broadway houses, but we here at Tampa Theatre have chosen to keep up the tradition as well. There are two purposes for a ghost light–one very practical purpose, and one more of a legend that gives the light its name. The practical purpose for a ghost light is as the night light for the Theatre. Theatres, by design, are big, light-proof boxes, and once you turn all of the lights off at the end of the night, it is very, very dark. So the ghost light is the one bulb left burning overnight, set on the stage to serve as a safety light for the last person to leave and the first person to arrive, so they can get backstage safely and turn the rest of the lights on for the day’s shows. Then, the ghost light gets turned off and stored backstage until the end of the night again. The more legendary purpose, though, is that it’s bad luck to leave a theater dark overnight, so you always want to leave one light burning for the ghosts to play by. Because if you don’t let the spirits have the stage at night, according to the superstition, they won’t give you the stage BACK the next day, and they’ll wreak all kinds of havoc on your productions.