title: MySQL concatenation and Illegal mix of collations error
body: <p>I keep getting an error using MySQL 5.5.27 when trying to concatenate some values.  I've searched and seen a bunch of charset answers (which admittedly is a TAD over my head), but I've converted all my tables to <em>Charset</em> <code>utf8-unicode-ci</code> and still get the error.</p>
  
  <p>Surely there is a way to concatenate these values, but I just don't know how. I'm an Oracle guy that is relatively new to MySQL.</p>
  
  <p>Here is the SQL line:</p>
  
  <pre><code>concat(pl.last_name,'-',format(money,0))
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I get:</p>
  
  <pre><code>#1270 - Illegal mix of collations (latin1_swedish_ci,IMPLICIT), (utf8_unicode_ci,COERCIBLE), (utf8_unicode_ci,COERCIBLE) for operation 'concat'
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Any ideas?</p>