We are ensuring all our graduates can celebrate at an in person ceremony

We are very sorry that some of our graduates have been unable to secure tickets for Spring 2022 and are grateful for their patience and understanding.

We are committed to ensuring all our graduates whose ceremonies were postponed due to the pandemic are able to celebrate at an in-person ceremony.

We are running ceremonies for the classes of 2020 and 2021 between 28 March to 1 April 2022 and in the week commencing 25 July 2022.

We are delighted that so many of our graduates want to attend and celebrate their achievements. Some of the Spring ceremonies sold out and we are very sorry that this has caused disappointment and frustration.

Capacity is always limited for Graduation ceremonies and we have to plan on the basis of previous attendance and student numbers. When we planned our 2022 ceremonies, we did not know the likely demand. We also have to accommodate additional requirements as a result of COVID-19, which require a longer gap between ceremonies and affects the number of ceremonies we are able to run per day.

We consulted our graduates on our plans for Graduation in 2022 and published a schedule of 15 ceremonies for the Spring. We always planned to run additional ceremonies in July if more were needed. Once the bookings opened for Spring, demand was much higher than we had expected.

We looked at a number of options to ensure that as many graduates as possible who wish to attend in Spring are able to do so. In response to the amazing demand, we were unable to add more ceremonies during Spring Graduation week. However, we did increase capacity in the Spring ceremonies while maintaining the safety of our community. We also prioritised any spare tickets for graduates and their guests who had not been able to secure tickets and ran a ballot system to fill spaces in the fairest way and in response to feedback from the Students’ Union.

We know the COVID-19 pandemic continues to be really disruptive for our graduates. We want to reiterate our commitment to ensuring all our graduates whose ceremonies were postponed due to the pandemic are able to celebrate at an in-person ceremony. We are proud of all our graduates. We are determined that the difficult decisions we had to take to postpone our Graduation ceremonies will not stop them from celebrating their achievements. Anyone who was unable to secure tickets for the Spring will be invited to a ceremony in July.