Candlelight concerts in Lisbon

Candlelight is Fever's own concert format, and Lisbon has run it for years: the ABBA programme at the Altis Grand Hotel alone carried 1,136 reviews on Fever on 30 October 2026. The idea is simple. A room is filled with candles, a string quartet sits in the middle of them, and for 60 minutes it plays the songs of one band arranged for two violins, viola and cello. Every programme is a tribute: Fever says on each listing that the concert is not associated with or endorsed by the artist. You hear Dancing Queen, Comfortably Numb or Viva La Vida played by Portuguese string players, not the bands themselves; Fever names the Quarteto Lisboa for the December ABBA dates and for the Coldplay evenings in January and February.

The evening starts at the door. At the Altis, Fever opens it 30 minutes before the concert; at the Aula Magna, 60 minutes before. Nobody is let in once the music has started. There are no numbered seats: you buy a zone, from Zone A at the front down to Zone D at the Altis or Zone E at the Aula Magna, and staff seat you within it in order of arrival, so the first in get the front of each block. The candles are flameless LEDs, Fever says, and they are what makes the photographs; you may film only the final piece, without flash, when the musicians say so.

The programmes are about a dozen pieces long. The ABBA set runs from Dancing Queen and SOS through Fernando and Chiquitita to Mamma Mia. Pink Floyd covers Wish You Were Here, Money, Us and Them and Shine On You Crazy Diamond. The Coldplay and Imagine Dragons evening sets Clocks, Fix You and Viva La Vida against Radioactive, Thunder and Believer.

The two rooms are very different. The Altis Grand Hotel on Rua Castilho opened in 1973, Fever says, and its concerts are a hotel evening: the ABBA listing says the ticket includes 10% off the hotel's bars and restaurants. The Aula Magna is the great hall of the University of Lisbon's Rectory, a modernist building by Porfírio Pardal Monteiro that opened in 1961 and was classified a National Monument in 2023; Fever gives it 1,547 seats, so the candles there light a full concert auditorium.

The one we would book first is the ABBA tribute at the Altis Grand Hotel: it has more reviews than any other Candlelight show in Lisbon, 1,136 at 4.7 on Fever on 30 October 2026, and it has the longest run on sale, six dates from 27 November 2026 to 12 March 2027. The cheapest seat is 18.38 euros with fees on Saturday 2 January 2027 at 19:00; other dates start at 18.90 to 24.68. The Altis is also the venue for most of our hotels. Palácio Príncipe Real is an 11-minute walk away, as is the Four Seasons Hotel Ritz Lisbon; Hotel das Amoreiras, Memmo Príncipe Real and Sublime Lisboa are 12 to 14 minutes on foot. On the same stage, the Pink Floyd tribute is the best-rated show of the three on Fever that day, 4.84 from 100 reviews, with dates on 27 November, 27 December and 6 February from 18.90 euros.

The Aula Magna is the choice if you want the bigger room and Coldplay or Imagine Dragons: that show held 4.8 from 322 reviews and plays on 22 November, 17 December, 23 January and 13 February, from 18.38 euros in Zone E. It is a concert hall rather than a ballroom, and it sits at Cidade Universitária in the north of the city, so from our hotels it is a taxi or a metro ride on the yellow line.

We left out several shows that do not yet have 100 reviews, among them the Best of the 80s at the Altis (4.76 from 99), Timeless Composers like Mozart and Bach there (4.72 from 75), and Christmas Classics at the Aula Magna on 17 December (4.81 from 69); they are on Fever's Lisbon Candlelight page. The Vivaldi programme at the Academia das Ciências, the prettiest room on Fever's list, held 4.45 from 358 reviews, below our bar. For Lisbon's own music, see our page on the Casa-Museu Amália Rodrigues, the fado singer's house in São Bento, a short taxi ride from the Altis.

On zones: Fever says Zone A has the best view and the last zone an average one. At the Altis, on the ABBA date of 2 January, Zone D costs 18.38 euros, Zone C 30.45, Zone B 36.75 and Zone A 43.05. Zone C is where we would sit: it costs about 12 euros more than Zone D and puts you a block nearer the quartet. At the Aula Magna there is also a Front row, from 57.22 euros.