CCT College Graduation Ceremony
CCT College Dublin held their first virtual College Graduation Ceremony in November 2020. CCT College was one of our first clients to use The CCD’s Hybrid Event Platform.
Delegates: 528
Client: CCT College Dublin
Event: CCT College Graduation Ceremony
Type: Special Events
Date: 08 November 2020
Days: 1
Brief
The COVID-19 pandemic brought a major challenge to the events industry, with many clients and businesses across the world re-scheduling, cancelling or choosing alternative options such as digital or hybrid style events.
Each year, CCT College Dublin comes to The Convention Centre Dublin (The CCD) to hold their most important annual event - the College Graduation Ceremony, which usually takes place in the Auditorium each November. With the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, CCT College needed to consider alternative ways to run the event. The client felt it was the appropriate time for their graduates to celebrate their success as delaying the graduation would have caused uncertainty for current and future graduates of the college and so, came to The CCD to host their first virtual event.
The client’s aim was to produce a great virtual event for a very special cohort of graduates, who spent much of their final year semester online. The client wanted to deliver their normal ceremony online with the addition of an interactive nature.
The most important part of CCT’s Graduation Ceremony is celebrating the achievements of their graduates and ensuring each person enjoys receiving their parchment after investing so much to earn their qualification. They wanted to ensure this was felt through an online presence and not just delivered as an online webinar.
Solution
The CCT College graduation was pre-recorded at the venue, then edited and streamed live on The CCD online event platform. The original event was due to take place on Saturday, 14th November 2020. The ceremony went ahead on the scheduled date, taking place in an online format. It was very important to the client to keep the original date to maintain the institution’s academic year schedule. The main objective of the event was to achieve a level of interactivity between staff and graduates reflecting how a normal event would run.
The preparation of the online event posed some obstacles and challenges, mainly deriving from the pandemic restrictions. Foremost in everyone’s mind was ensuring that they delivered a ceremony that the graduates deserved. The CCD understood the level of importance of the ceremony and supported the client in delivering a virtual ceremony which had a memorable impact, allowed the graduates to feel special and celebrated, while producing a virtual interactive experience.
Due to government restrictions, the physical recording of the event required meticulous planning and execution. The CCD and CCT College monitored all government and public health advice in the lead up to the event. The ceremony was pre-recorded a week before its live date, allowing for a safe production. On the day of filming, The CCD provided the client with support and direction to create a show flow of the ceremony to ensure it was engaging for those watching at home.
The event was not just streamed as a webinar, it allowed for interaction and inclusion for all staff and graduates, which was very important to the client. To ensure the graduates felt special when receiving their parchment, images of the graduands were also edited into the ceremony.
Introduction of The CCD Online Event Platform
In 2020, The CCD launched its online event platform, which offers a customisable, online experience that can facilitate registration, sponsorship, networking and virtual meeting spaces. It provides an all-in-one solution for online events from planning, filming and recording to editing, populating, and customising. CCT College were one of The CCD’s first clients to use the online event platform and the first digital event where the team provided platform support.
On the day of the event, this platform was fully branded for CCT and was used to introduce key speakers, present the itinerary for the day, and the streaming of the full event. The platform also provided a chat function which was used for meetings between graduates, guests, and staff after the event. The online event platform integrated the whole event and gave a clear and comprehensive picture of what CCT was trying to achieve with their Graduation Ceremony 2020. The platform created a space for graduates to experience the event together, to share photos and comments with their peers within the activity feed while they watched the ceremony, and to meet for a chat and a celebration afterwards in the informal breakout rooms set up for each course group.
Some key speakers at the event included Cathriona Hallahan, Managing Director of Microsoft Ireland, and Honorary Fellowship Brother, Kevin Crowley, Founder and Director of the Capuchin Day Centre for Homeless People. Both Cathriona and Brother Kevin along with other contributors remarked on the professional delivery and production of the event using The CCD online event platform
Results
The overall event was a success, with 528 graduates logging in from 46 countries across the world. The CCD online event platform ensured an interactive element to the event. This included an opportunity after the ceremony for all graduate cohorts and families to interact online with CCT staff in what proved to be a real atmosphere of celebration. The event received a great deal of feedback from all parties to the 2020 Graduation Ceremony. All delegate feedback from the ceremony was positive and the client was satisfied that they delivered a virtual event that met the graduates’ expectations.
We felt we were using a platform which had been in existence for quite a while. It handled seamlessly the capacity of the audience we had on the day, presented all information clearly, looked good aesthetically, and was easy to navigate. The platform streamed our ceremony flawlessly and the interactive capability after the ceremony was a highlight. Neil Gallagher, College President, CCT College Dublin