Michael Starring Ben At De Montfort Hall, Leicester, On Friday 30 October

Leicester has a Michael Jackson night on the Friday before Halloween, and it is the theatre version rather than a pub tribute. Michael Starring Ben, the touring production built around Ben Bowman, plays De Montfort Hall on Friday 30 October at 7.30pm, with a live band and the Jackson 5 songs alongside the solo hits.

• Date: Friday 30 October 2026
• Show: 7.30pm
• Venue: De Montfort Hall, Granville Road, Leicester LE1 7RU
• Tickets: On sale through cuffeandtaylor.com and the De Montfort Hall box office
• Price: Not stated in the listing, so check the venue page before booking

The Facebook header reads “12:30 PM PDT”, which is the Pacific time conversion of a 7.30pm UK start and nothing more. The show begins at 7.30pm Leicester time. Doors are not given in the listing, and De Montfort Hall usually opens the auditorium around 45 minutes before a seated show, so 6.45pm is the sensible arrival.

Ben Bowman Brings A Band And The Full Costume Changes

Ben Bowman has toured as Michael Jackson for years and the production calls him the UK’s leading Jackson tribute. The show is staged as a theatre piece, with a band on stage, the costume changes the real tours carried, and the dance routines performed in full. The listing’s own claim is that audiences believe they are watching Jackson himself.

The set covers the solo hits and the Jackson 5 material, with Beat It, Billie Jean, Thriller and Man in the Mirror named in the listing. The Jackson 5 songs are the ones a pub tribute usually skips, so I Want You Back and ABC are the likely gain from the theatre version.

The Date Lands The Night Before Halloween

The Friday date falls the night before Halloween, which gives the Thriller routine a room already in the mood. Thriller the album came out in November 1982 and the video the following December, so the song has been a Halloween fixture for over 40 years. A seated hall will not let the audience do the zombie walk in the aisles, though a show on this date will know what the crowd came for.

Prices Are Not Printed, So Check These Three Things

The listing gives no ticket price, so the figures below are what to check rather than what to pay.

• Ticket price per seat from the De Montfort Hall box office or Cuffe & Taylor, with the booking fee shown at checkout
• De Montfort Hall’s own car park on Granville Road, pay and display, or the 15 minute walk from Leicester station
• Interval drinks at hall bar prices, with the bars opening before the show

De Montfort Hall sits on the edge of Victoria Park, and the walk from the station runs up London Road past the university. Anyone who missed this date has a second chance, because the show is already listed to return to the hall on Friday 19 November 2027.

Leicester City Council Owns The Hall, Cuffe And Taylor Promote The Show

The event is listed by De Montfort Hall, which is owned and run by Leicester City Council, with Cuffe & Taylor as the promoter. The listing states plainly that this is a tribute production with no connection to or endorsement from the Michael Jackson Estate, and it is a separate show from the West End musical MJ. Age guidance is not given, so families with young children should ask the box office.

Will Leicester sing the Jackson 5 songs as loudly as the Thriller ones?