Idiom request for describing an uncrowded or a deserted place

I think the equivalent idiom in English would be to say not a soul was there. At least that would be the case in Britain.

I went to the cinema and, apart from me, there wasn't a soul there.

In the main street, there wasn't a soul. It was so scary.

And thanks to the comment of @ Preetie Sekhon, I have remembered it would be even more idiomatic to say, as regards the street. and there wasn't a soul to be seen. That doesn't work quite so well with the cinema, however. But @Elian's example of there wasn't a living soul would perhaps fit with either.

"ghost town," is really the most common way to express the sentiment, I would say 90% of the time I've heard the idiom in practice it was NOT referring specifically to an actual town.

One reasonably common and well understood comparison for a deserted place - if it's a place that one might expect to be busy, and in British English at least - is the Mary Celeste:

So many people were off sick yesterday, the office was like the Mary Celeste!

or

I was expecting the cinema to be packed on a Friday night, but it was like the Mary Celeste in there.

As the Wikipedia article notes, the name is often misreported as the "Marie" Celeste.

You could simply say that it was dead in there

(Of a place or time) characterized by a lack of activity or excitement: