Question: The below SQL code is supposed to return a concatenated string of first and last name, but it always returns 0's. Does anyone know why (PS I'm a complete NEWB to programming)? 

Everything else in my code I've tested and it's working fine, but for some reason the two varchars don't want to return a string. Also, I tried concatenating the memid + zipcode from the same data set and it worked fine, so I believe it has something to do with the data type

```
SELECT f.name, 
CONCAT( m.firstname +  " " + m.surname ) AS mem_name
FROM  `Bookings` b
JOIN  `Members` m ON m.memid = b.memid
JOIN  `Facilities` f ON b.facid = f.facid
WHERE f.name LIKE  '%Tennis%'
LIMIT 0 , 30

```

It returns this:

```
name            mem_name
Table Tennis    0
Tennis Court 1  0
Tennis Court 1  0
Tennis Court 2  0
Table Tennis    0
Table Tennis    0
Tennis Court 1  0
Tennis Court 1  0
Tennis Court 1  0

```

Here is the two data types:

```
surname     varchar(17) utf8_general_ci     
firstname   varchar(9)  utf8_general_ci 

```

This is what the 'members' table looks like

```
memid  surname  firstname  address                      zipcode  
1      Smith    Darren     8 Bloomsbury Close, Boston   4321
2      Smith    Tracy      8 Bloomsbury Close, New York 4321
3      Rownam   Tim        23 Highway Way, Boston       23423
4      Joplette Janice     20 Crossing Road, New York   234

```

Answer: 
You don't have to use the `+` operator. Try this:

```sql
SELECT 
    f.name, 
    CONCAT( m.firstname, " ", m.surname ) AS mem_name
FROM  `Bookings` b
JOIN  `Members` m ON m.memid = b.memid
JOIN  `Facilities` f ON b.facid = f.facid
WHERE f.name LIKE  '%Tennis%'
LIMIT 0, 30

```
At times, the concat function does not take multiple arguments. try nesting your columns that are to be concatenated. Also, use a `,` instead of plus.

```
SELECT 
    f.name, 
    CONCAT(CONCAT( m.firstname, ' '), m.surname ) AS mem_name
FROM  `Bookings` b
JOIN  `Members` m ON m.memid = b.memid
JOIN  `Facilities` f ON b.facid = f.facid
WHERE f.name LIKE  '%Tennis%'
LIMIT 0, 30

```

Check whether this works.