Three years ago a band of fun-loving Auburn residents decided to mark the city’s birthday, whooping it up, listening to music and having a great time with good friends in a downtown beer garden.

Modest though attendance at the annual celebration has been since then, drawing 300 to 500 people, for this go-around, festivity planners have thrown in some new things to draw more of Auburn’s party animals in to do the celebrating.

Auburn City Councilman John Holman, one of the members of the Auburn Downtown Association Committee that now is putting the bash together, said this year’s goal is to plump up attendance by enticing more young people.

So, along with music and that beer garden, this year’s shindig on Friday, June 5, marking 124 candles on the municipal cake, will offer a root-beer garden, with ice cream for root-beer floats.

“We’re trying to bring in more participation of school bands, to draw students and their parents in, to get people in the habit of coming downtown to celebrate special events,” Holman said. “This is not about getting people downtown to buy things, this is about getting people in the habit of coming to downtown on a regular basis to have fun.”