«Tổ Quốc Trong Tim» National Concert (Ho Chi Minh City)

   A state flag-raising ceremony, marching military blocks and a full open-air concert stage in a single evening — something the south of the country has not seen before. After last year's night at Mỹ Đình stadium, Vietnam's national concert format moves to Ho Chi Minh City.

   Nhân Dân, the Communist Party's central daily and one of the largest newspapers in the country, produces the show together with the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee, funded outside the state budget. It runs in three connected chapters. «Non sông một dải» ("One unbroken land") walks through the turning points of Vietnamese history in music and imagery. «Sắc đỏ tự hào» ("Proud red") puts the national flag at the centre, standing for the resolve and the sacrifices of successive generations. The closing chapter shares the concert's name and is the youngest and loudest of the three, mixing contemporary staging with the cultural colours of the north, centre and south.

   The military element here is substantial rather than decorative. Military Region 7 alone is fielding 430 personnel: an honour guard for the flag-raising, officer blocks representing five army columns, a block of women officers from Vietnam's UN peacekeeping force and a block of southern women guerrillas. Four more servicewomen are coming from Khánh Hòa. Beyond the parade, soldiers also act in staged scenes from the resistance war, and rehearsals run through most of August.

   The first edition, at Hanoi's Mỹ Đình stadium on 10 August 2025, gives you the scale: 50,000 people in the stands, an 80-voice choir leading the whole stadium through both verses of the national anthem, and 68 cadets from Army Officer School No. 1 repeating the march they had performed on Red Square in Moscow. The ticket portal collapsed under 3 million requests in 9 minutes. Đăng Dương, Tùng Dương, Võ Hạ Trâm, Tóc Tiên and Suboi sang, and the night went out live on television and on digital platforms. In 2026 the project won WAN-IFRA's Digital Media Award Asia for the best marketing campaign by a news brand.

   If you are in Vietnam on a short stay, this is a rare look at how the country presents itself to itself, with no souvenir stalls and no tourist framing in between. The 2026 line-up and the invitation scheme have not been announced yet: admission is free, but places are finite, so follow the programme's official channels if you want to be inside rather than outside.

   The site is open ground built to hold tens of thousands, so give yourself time to get in and settle. Wear something red if you can — a year ago the Mỹ Đình stands turned into one solid field of flag colours.