[img_assist|nid=3041|title=Wuppertal's glorious Historische Stadthalle|desc=displaying flags from all 9 countries represented|link=none|align=center|width=420|height=280] Last weekend saw mixed barbershop quartets and choruses from nine different countries converge to compete at the world mixed championships, hosted by Barbershop in Germany alongside their own national championships. The last time I made to BinG!’s [easylink= BinGBMF2018 | text=Barbershopmusikfestival was in 2018] (we were booked also to go in 2020, but we all know how that turned out…). This was the occasion of the inaugural World Mixed chorus contest, and it is interesting to see how – and how much – things have changed in the interim. The World Mixed quartet contest has been established for longer so the changes here are less dramatic, though it shares what was for me the headline development: mixed barbershop appears at last to have a handle on choice of key. For the [easylink= mixedqt | text=first few years] after the introduction of mixed ensembles at barbershop conventions I was consistently commenting on the challenges of finding a key that works for [easylink= babsquartetcon21b | text=all voices] in the group.