What to bring to your graduation ceremony

A practical kit list — what fits in your pocket, what does not, and the small things that quietly save the day.

A UCL graduation is two journeys, not one. Your gown is in Bloomsbury and your ceremony is at the Royal Festival Hall, across the river on the South Bank. Get the order of the day right and it is a good day. Get it wrong and you spend the morning travelling instead of celebrating. What to bring comes down to a handful of essentials, a small comfort kit, and two or three things nobody warns you about until it is too late.

Part one

The essentials

Your QR code is the first thing you need, on your phone or printed. You show it with photo identification at the registration desk to collect your paper ticket, and without it the day stalls before it starts. Bring the photo identification as well; the QR code alone is not enough.

Registration opens about two hours and fifteen minutes before your ceremony. Try to check in at least sixty minutes before it starts. You can still check in later than that, but you are marked as arriving after your cohort and your name is read out at the end of the ceremony instead of with everyone else.

The four things to leave the house with
  • QR codeOn your phone or printed, plus photo identification.
  • Your guests' QR codesSent to them in advance if they are travelling separately.
  • Phone, fully chargedPlus a portable charger for the afternoon.
  • Cap and gownCollected the evening before, so it is already with you.

Your guests each need a ticket of their own, and each of them needs their QR code scanned on arrival to receive a paper ticket and their reception vouchers. If your family is travelling separately, send their codes the night before rather than on the morning. Everybody comes in through the same door, the Southbank Centre Square Doors on Level 1, so there is no scramble to find each other at different entrances.

One detail nobody mentions: you sit apart from your guests. Their seats are numbered and issued from the front of the hall backwards, so a guest arriving late sits further back. Agree where to meet afterwards before you go in.

And your cap and gown. If you are hiring from us, collect the evening before, up to 8pm. Our collection points are in Bloomsbury and your ceremony is at the South Bank, so collecting the night before turns two journeys into one and takes the whole question off your ceremony morning.

The day at a glance
60 minCheck in before this
~90 minThe ceremony itself
45 minReception afterwards
19:30Gown back with us

"Bobby pins for the mortarboard. It is the single most useful thing nobody tells you."

A&F, six seasons in
Part two

Comfort, and the photographs

Bring bobby pins or hair clips. The mortarboard is designed to sit flat and it will slide the moment you move without something holding it. This is the item people message us about afterwards, every single season.

Bring a bottle of water and wear comfortable shoes. The Royal Festival Hall seats two and a half thousand people, and between registration, the gowning area, the auditorium and the reception on the upper floors you are on your feet far longer than the ninety minutes the ceremony takes.

Worth knowing in advance

UCL's official photographs happen before the ceremony, not after.

The studio sessions open around two hours before your ceremony and close about thirty minutes before it starts, and they are pre-booked through the Graduation Portal. No official photographs are taken once the ceremony has finished. If you want pictures with your family afterwards, outdoors, with the river behind you, that part is yours to arrange.

Take nothing on stage with you. No phone, no camera, no selfies. Your guests may photograph you crossing the stage from their seats, but tripods, selfie sticks and flash are not allowed in the auditorium.

The certificate takes care of itself. Staff meet every graduate straight after the stage and hand over the award documents, so there is nothing to collect later and nothing to carry up with you.

Studio photographs first
Pre-booked, and finished before you go in. Leave time for it in the registration window.
Then the ceremony
About ninety minutes. Your guests are seated separately, so agree a meeting point first.
Reception upstairs
Fourth and fifth floors, about forty-five minutes, drinks included with the ticket.
Photographs outside
The terrace, the river, the London Eye. This is the part people actually frame.
Part three

For your guests

Send your guests three things the night before: their QR code, the venue address on Belvedere Road, and a meeting point for afterwards. Waterloo is the nearest station, about five minutes on foot. Embankment is ten minutes away across the Golden Jubilee Bridge, which is the better walk if the weather holds.

Guests should be inside at least thirty minutes before the ceremony. Every ticket is bought through the Graduation Portal by you, not by them, and there is no arrangement for anyone arriving without one, so nobody should travel on the assumption that they will be let in. Anyone who cannot be there can watch the live stream, which is also available to rewatch afterwards.

There is a cloakroom, which charges £2 an item. That is worth knowing if your family are arriving straight from a train with luggage, and it is the reason you do not need to carry everything yourself.

In short

Collect the gown the evening before. Bring your QR code and photo identification. Send your guests their codes the night before. Check in a full hour before the ceremony. Bobby pins. Save your camera for afterwards, because UCL's photographer will not be there then. Gown back with us by half past seven.

Keep reading

More from the Journal

UCL Graduation Guide
Everything you need to know for your UCL graduation — dates, deadlines, ceremony day, dress code, photos and after.