  In this paper, we explore the possibility that a light dilaton can be the
first sign of new physics at the LHC. The dilaton could emerge in approximate
scale invariant UV completions of the SM as the Goldstone boson associated with
the spontaneous breaking of the scale invariance. We study in detail the
phenomenology of the dilaton at the LHC in the mass range of [$10-300$] GeV
including the case where the dilaton can mix with the SM Higgs boson, leading
to an interesting interplay between direct and indirect constraints. A
possibility that the dilaton acts as a portal to a dark sector is also
considered. As a minimal realization, the dark sector includes a dark photon
lighter than the dilaton implying sizeable missing energy signatures. Several
simplified benchmark models that can encode different UV completions are
discussed, for which we scrutinize the current and future LHC reach.
