The night-before list for an Imperial ceremony: the e-ticket email, your CID and ID, safety pins for the hood, one small bag for the Royal Albert Hall, and what to send your guests.
An Imperial graduation happens in two places side by side in South Kensington: the campus, where you check in, have your photographs taken and go on to your reception, and the Royal Albert Hall, where you cross the stage. The campus has nowhere to leave a bag, and the hall has firm rules about what comes in. So the packing is worth doing the night before, with a short list and a small bag. Here's what to take, what you can skip, and what your guests need from you.
The email that matters most lands about two weeks before your ceremony: your graduand e-ticket. It carries the QR code you scan to check in, your seat at the Royal Albert Hall, your Faculty Reception pass if you booked one, and a gown booking reference if you hired through the university's own supplier. You'll be asked to show the whole e-ticket, so keep it where it opens without a signal, and take a screenshot as a backup.
Two more things go with it: your CID number and a photographic ID. Imperial puts both on its own don't-forget list, together with the e-ticket and arriving in your allocated check-in slot. Check-in doesn't open to you before that slot, so the time in your email is the one to plan the day around.
Hiring from us? Your gown and hood will already be with you, collected the night before or early on the day, so you can arrive dressed, which is how the Royal Albert Hall expects to see you: gown on, e-ticket ready. You still check in, though, and it matters more than it sounds.
Don't skip the envelope. Check-in, in the Junior Common Room of the Sherfield Building, is where you collect your graduation envelope, and Imperial is plain about it: without your gown, your e-ticket and that envelope, you can't take part in the ceremony. Turn up in your slot, neither early nor late.
That's the core list: the e-ticket, your CID, your ID and the gown. Line them up by the door the night before; the rest of this list is about comfort, photographs and your guests.
"Don't forget … safety pin(s) to hold your hood in place."
— Imperial College London, graduand guide
Here's where Imperial differs: there's no cap. The academic dress is a gown and hood only, and hats aren't permitted unless they're worn for religious or medical reasons. So leave out the hair grips that graduation lists usually start with. What you need instead are two or three safety pins to keep the hood where it belongs. They're on Imperial's own checklist, and they're what stops a hood sliding off one shoulder between check-in and the final photograph.
Imperial's official photographer, Tempest, runs a studio on the day in the Queen's Tower Rooms of the Sherfield Building, with a second one at the Smith Centre in the Science Museum. Tempest doesn't provide academic dress, so you need to be gowned before you join the queue, which is easy when you arrive in ours. If time runs short before the ceremony, head for the hall first; the studios stay open afterwards. Pictures of you crossing the stage go on sale after the ceremony in the City and Guilds Building, by the University Main Entrance.
For your own photographs, Imperial sets up spots around campus on the day: flower walls at the University Main Entrance, giant Imperial letters in Dalby Court, and the Queen's Tower and its lions on Queen's Lawn.
Charge your phone fully and pack a small power bank: the phone holds your e-ticket, your messages to family and every photograph after the official ones. Inside the hall it goes off or onto silent, with no flash photography and no selfies on stage.
Eat before your slot. The campus cafés open early on ceremony days, Pret in Dalby Court and the Library Café in the Abdus Salam Library among them, and between check-in, the hall and the reception, it's a long time to go on an empty stomach.
The South Kensington Campus has no cloakroom or left luggage. At the Royal Albert Hall each person may bring one bag of up to 25 litres, about 40 × 30 × 20 cm: a handbag, a satchel, a briefcase or a small rucksack. Anything more goes into the hall's cloakroom at £2 an item, so pack the night before and make it all fit.
Work back from your ceremony time. Your check-in slot comes by email and is usually two to three hours before the start. Imperial asks you to be on campus at least 90 minutes ahead; the hall's doors open 45 minutes before, and you should be in your seat 30 minutes before. Once the ceremony has begun, getting in isn't guaranteed.
Your guests' tickets come from the Royal Albert Hall itself, by email about two weeks before the day, from e-tickets@royalalberthall.com; if something has gone missing, the box office at Door 12 can help on the day. Their door may not be the one printed on your e-ticket, so agree a meeting point before you split up. Every child aged two or over needs a ticket, and children under 16 stay with an adult guest throughout, as none can sit with a graduand.
The check-in area in the Sherfield Building is for graduands only, so your guests will wait elsewhere on campus while you're inside; a café is the easy answer. Anyone without a ticket can watch the livestream in the Union Concert Hall in Beit Quad, right next to the Royal Albert Hall, on a first-come, first-served basis, and everyone else can watch online.
If you booked Faculty Reception passes, your reception starts shortly after the ceremony back on campus. Passes are sold in advance only, so there's nothing to buy on the day.
A suitcase or a large holdall: there's nowhere on campus to leave it, and only one small bag gets into the hall. Flags, confetti cannons, air horns and helium balloons, all of which the hall and the receptions turn away, and the celebratory drinks, which can wait until later. And don't fret over the certificate: it isn't handed out at the ceremony, but posted to you within three months of your degree being conferred.
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