Graduation Ceremonies 2023 Queen Mary University of London

Where it started

The moment

Graduation is one of the most important moments in the university calendar. For graduates and their families, it is the culmination of years of hard work and a moment that will stay with them long after they leave university. It is also the point at which students formally become part of the alumni community, beginning a new relationship with their institution.

For Queen Mary University of London, summer 2023 would see more than 5,000 students graduate across 19 ceremonies in just six days.

With only five weeks to go before graduation week, the University was facing significant capacity pressures at an already complex time. The Events and Ceremonies team needed experienced additional support that could step in quickly, understand how Queen Mary operated and help deliver an ambitious programme without adding unnecessary new processes or disruption.

Assemble was appointed to work alongside the team and help get them ready.

Where it needed to get to

The challenge

There was no lengthy lead-in.

With five weeks until the first ceremony, the priority was to get up to speed quickly and provide additional expertise and capacity around an existing programme.

Nineteen ceremonies across six days meant there was little margin for error. Each had its own graduates, guests, academics, running orders, reading lists and operational requirements. Across the programme sat thousands of individual data points, multiple suppliers and a wide network of internal stakeholders spanning academic schools, Registry, Alumni, Estates and Security.

The wider context added another layer of complexity. The ceremonies were taking place during a particularly challenging period for the University, against the backdrop of industrial action and a marking boycott, meaning graduate data and eligibility required particularly careful management.

Our challenge was not to arrive with an ‘Assemble way’ of doing things. It was to integrate quickly with the Queen Mary’s existing systems and ways of working, identify where our experience could add most value and give the internal team the additional capacity, structure and confidence they needed.

And there was an important longer-term consideration too: success wasn’t about making Assemble indispensable. It was about helping the University’s team build the knowledge and confidence to deliver future ceremonies themselves.

How we approached it

The thinking

From the outset, our approach was to work with what was already there.

Rather than introducing new systems or rebuilding established processes five weeks before graduation, we worked alongside the Queen Mary team to establish clear governance, responsibilities and decision-making routes around the existing operation.

We developed a detailed project plan that brought the many strands of activity together, creating greater visibility around milestones, responsibilities and deadlines. From there, our focus was on identifying the places where additional capacity or expertise could make the greatest difference.

The graduate journey became one of the central organising principles. We looked across the experience from registration through robing and arrival to the moment graduates crossed the stage, considering not only what needed to happen operationally but how all those individual touchpoints connected.

At the same time, we worked across the detail underpinning that experience: graduate communications and eligibility, ceremony running orders, academic processions, reading lists and brochures, supplier coordination, catering, security, staffing and venue logistics.

It was a pragmatic approach built around one principle: support the team, strengthen the operation and make the experience feel seamless and memorable for the people graduating.

What we delivered

The experience

Across graduation week, Assemble worked alongside Queen Mary’s Events and Ceremonies team to deliver all 19 ceremonies.

Our role stretched across the full operation. We coordinated the graduate journey and communications, worked with internal teams on graduate data and eligibility, prepared reading lists and tailored ceremony brochures, and helped finalise running orders, stage plans, academic processions and attendance.

We coordinated external suppliers across robing, photography, AV, staging, catering and live streaming, while working with internal colleagues across Estates, Security and Cleaning to ensure spaces were prepared, safe and ready to be reset for the next ceremony.

On site, the focus turned to making an inherently complex operation feel simple for graduates and their guests. Registration and robing needed to run smoothly, staff, stewards and volunteers needed to know exactly what was expected of them, and every ceremony needed to remain on time while preserving the sense of occasion each graduate deserved.

Behind all of this was a close working relationship with the Queen Mary team. We weren’t running a parallel operation. We were working within theirs, sharing knowledge, solving problems together and supporting colleagues through an extraordinarily intensive week of delivery.

What it achieved

The impact

Across six days, more than 5,000 Queen Mary students graduated through 19 ceremonies.

But the success of the project wasn’t only measured by getting every ceremony over the line.

From the outset, part of our role had been to build capability within the Events and Ceremonies team. By working alongside colleagues rather than taking the programme away from them, knowledge and experience were shared throughout the process, helping equip the team to take ownership of future graduation programmes without continued external support.

That combination of immediate capacity and longer-term capability was particularly important. Assemble could step in when additional support was needed but leave behind a team better prepared for what came next.

Where it led

What happened next

Perhaps the most important outcome was that Queen Mary’s team was able to take what had been learned through the summer programme and carry it forward.

Assemble had been brought in at a specific moment when additional capacity and expertise were needed. Our role was never about creating dependency. It was about embedding ourselves quickly, providing practical support and experience where it was most valuable, and helping strengthen the team around us.

That is an important part of how we work.

Sometimes a client needs us to shape an idea from its earliest stages. Sometimes they need a partner to work alongside them over several years. And sometimes they simply need experienced people who can step into a complex situation, understand it quickly and help an internal team through an exceptionally demanding period.

The Queen Mary graduation programme was exactly that.

For more than 5,000 graduates, those six days represented the culmination of years of work and the beginning of something new. For us, success meant helping Queen Mary’s team give each of them the moment they had worked so hard to reach, while leaving the team ready to take the next one forward themselves.

In their words

“Assemble Events came in to support our team during a really busy period. With their help, our whole new team was supported in taking on our summer graduation ceremonies for over 5000 students. Not only did they support the team, they upskilled them too. We were delighted with the support provided by Assemble Events. They provided us with expert guidance and advice, were reliable, efficient and always on hand in the lead up to the event and beyond. They helped us make sure each day of the event ran smoothly and that all stakeholders were managed beautifully.”

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