Here’s how the 2025 weekend worked – details of the 2026 plan will be shared near the time but would be simlar to the below.

The weekend is very busy – do remember to schedule some “me time” to recharge if you need it.

Thursday

Quite a few people opted to arrive on Thursday, giving them a chance to overcome those brigade nerves and fix a few tricky bits of songs such as key changes and bell chords which really need to be sung in person.

When they checked in they were given a coloured lanyard showing their name and part and also with a handy list of the songs and their keys. And when you find 4 people with a red, a green, a blue and a yellow lanyard… you’ve got a quartet!

People started to congregate and sing in the main atrium during the afternoon/early evening, but things really got going at 6:15 when we met up to walk to a nearby pub for dinner.

Afterwards there was informal singing both in the pub and back in the hotel.

Friday

Breakfast was included and then the day is free for informal singing. You may want to start in larger groups before breaking out into quartets – there are no rules! We organise 2 smalle sing-outs to local care homes to spread the barbershop, and also an optional informal walk to Wallerton park for those who fancies it.

Based on feedback from 2024 Dance cards, complete with photos of all your amazing brigade-friends, were launched at 3pm and Brigade declared offically open! This ensure people who can’t arrive until Friday evening aren’t missing out! Dance cards motivate everyone to sing as many songs with as many different people as possible! The hund for someone’s sticker is a big part of the fun!

There was also a place on the Dance Card you can keep track of which songs you’ve sung, just for your own satisfaction. Many people decided they were indeed Going For Gold.

During the afternoon more people arrive and our checkers started their work. The aim of the checking is simply to make sure that you will be a good quartet partner to sing with in the competition – competition quartets are drawn randomly so we need to make sure everyone has a fair chance to compete. The point of checking is to incentivise you to be properly prepared in advance, because it really isn’t possible to fix things on the weekend itself. If you are truly comfortable singing the songs, “sing them till you can sing them right, then sing them till you can’t sing them wrong” is the mantra, you will breeze through the checking.

We had dinner together in the hotel at 6:30 and there was a (very) short welcoming speech!

After dinner we break up into two groups to rehearse some of the songs as a brigade chorus.

After that, there were auditions for anyone who wanted to do an act in the Saturday evening show. It was great to see people bringing along a variety of acts original poems, quartets, solo acts, duets, with props or instruments or whatever they chose.

The registration desk and bar stayed open for people who needed to arrive later on Friday.

Saturday

On Saturday we started with “Breakfast with your Part” from 8:00-9:00. The quartet nature of the weekend means that we often don’t speak to people on our own part! So we labelled up the tables for Tenor/Lead/Bari/Bass and everyone agreed it was a great chance to make some new friends who had shared exactly the same challenges when learning their part.

Some people had learned one song in an additional part so they could sing with those people too… that’s really “Extreme” quartetting and led to three people winning the coveted “Harmony Hypershoot” award.

Most of the morning was given over to singing but we also held a short UKTHB Committee meeting at 9:15. As a result of which a number of people signed up to help make the 2026 brigade work, which is truly fantastic. Brigade can’t function without it’s volunteers, so please do conside getting involved!!

At 12:00 we held the draw for the contest. There is a break for lunch, some quartet practise and of course some more singing.

2pm was contest time. We had some amazing judges and super experienced brigaders and barbershoppers Delyth and Dick Knight.

Each quartet sang their allocated song and after two rounds our judges decided the Brigade Winners and the top 3 places. We also asked everyone to nominate the person on their own voice part who you most enjoyed singing with/listening to, to create our Star Quartet.

The audition team was available after the contest for anyone who didn’t audition yesterday, and then they published the show running order.

Time for dinner at 6:30 and then glam up for the show. Show costume was black (or black and white if you don’t have all black) with a splash of colour.

The show started at 8pm and was originally described as being “open to the public, friends, relatives and any passers by who look round the door and don’t retreat fast enough. Tickets are free. We don’t expect a very large audience, we are really singing for our own satisfaction and enjoyment.” In fact we were joined by quite a few enthusiastic local supporters, which was really great.

Our two chorus brigades each sang sing five songs, directed by different brigade members – yes, we had more than 10 people at the brigade who were experienced chorus directors. The Brigade Winners performed ABC and the Star Quartet sang Good Morning Baltimore. And we had the other acts that you have brought along, which were very varied and all top quality, and very entertaining.

As the dance cards were now mostly full the brigade switched into Afterglow mode, where people sang chorus songs, polecats, tags and quartet songs as well. Some of us finally got to bed at around 1:30, others didn’t…

Sunday

Breakfast on Sunday was quite a quiet affair, partly due to the AfterGlow AfterEffects and partly because it felt like the Brigade was suddenly, shockingly over, far too soon.

At 10:00 we had a Brigade meeting and handed out the “Harmony Hotshot” and “Harmony Hypershoot” awards. Prize for the Person I Most Enjoyed Singing With which went to Fiona Earnshaw, this year’s Membership Lead.

We finished by singing just one or two brigade songs and taking a team photo and then, sadly, it was time to go home, except for the 15 brave souls who headed to the Victoria Center in Nottingham to squeeze a bit more joy out of the weekend and sing for the unsuspecting Sunday Shoppers! Phew!!

Ready to do it again!?!?! We are!!!