In the restaurant La Ventana at the Hilton Bogotá, the midday buffet on 7 August will be accompanied by the clink of beer glasses and the scent of reinterpreted traditional recipes. The hotel has organised a brunch to coincide with the capital’s birthday, offering unlimited beer – a nod to International Beer Day – alongside mimosas and hot drinks. A “bring your grandpa free” promotion invites groups of one grandfather and three adults to share the meal, which runs from noon until three in the afternoon. “We wanted to honour the city through preparations that evoke its traditional flavours,” said executive chef Adrián Gerboles.

That same week, 4,500 kilometres to the south-east, another municipality is preparing a far larger anniversary programme. Uberlândia, in Brazil’s Minas Gerais state, turns 138 on 31 August, but the city’s culture secretariat has scheduled free events from 14 August until 9 September. The centrepiece is an open-air concert on the anniversary night itself, outside the Municipal Theatre, where Rogério Flausino, Wilson Sideral and the band Mr. Gyn will perform after an opening set by the municipal symphonic band’s Sopro das Gerais ensemble.

The calendar stretches well beyond a single evening. On 30 August, the eighth edition of “Sou Mais Batera” will gather more than 250 drummers, 50 guitarists, 50 bassists, 50 keyboardists and 50 vocalists – with organisers expecting the total to surpass 500 musicians. Earlier, on 20 August, a special historical walking tour of the Fundinho district will reveal facts, legends and curiosities about the area’s preserved buildings; registration is by telephone only, from 17 to 20 August. A mapping festival with light projections and installations will illuminate the Granja Marileusa park and Clarimundo Carneiro square from 20 to 22 August, and the Fundinho Jazz Festival closes the programme on 5 and 6 September.

What links the two celebrations is a deliberate effort to turn a civic date into a shared, open-air experience. In Bogotá, the gesture is intimate – a meal designed to gather families around a table. In Uberlândia, it is expansive: a month of free music, cinema, dance and guided walks that draw residents into the city’s historic core. On the night of 31 August, as the symphonic brass fades and the first chords of Mr. Gyn ring out across the theatre’s outdoor esplanade, the anniversary will become, for a few hours, a collective soundtrack.