We study random points on the real line generated by the eigenvalues in unitary invariant random matrix ensembles or by more general repulsive particle systems. As the number of points tends to infinity, we prove convergence of the empirical distribution of nearest neighbor spacings. We extend existing results for the spacing distribution in two ways. On the one hand, we believe the empirical distribution to be of more practical relevance than the so far considered expected distribution. On the other hand, we use the unfolding, a non-linear rescaling, which transforms the ensemble such that the density of particles is asymptotically constant. This allows to consider all empirical spacings, where previous results were restricted to a tiny fraction of the particles. Moreover, we prove bounds on the rates of convergence. The main ingredient for the proof, a strong bulk universality result for correlation functions in the unfolded setting including optimal rates, should be of independent interest.