Preparing for your graduation

The graduation ceremony dates and times can be found on the schedule.

To confirm your place, visit the graduation booking system. There is no charge for students to attend their ceremony, but if you don’t confirm your place on the booking system, it will be assumed you aren’t attending. You will need your student P number to book your place on the system - when you enter it, remove the P and just enter the number.

Students are allocated to a ceremony based on course and date of completion and cannot transfer to a different ceremony date.

We really don’t want you to miss out on attending your big day, and some ceremonies fill up quickly - so seating might be limited. We strongly advise you to book straight away to avoid disappointment. If, after booking, you can no longer attend, you can cancel later.

Don’t make any travel or accommodation arrangements for yourself or guests until all your tickets are confirmed via the booking system.

Visit our ticket information page to find out more about how to book tickets for yourself and your guests, as well as options for people who can't attend in person.

To be eligible to attend, you must have passed all elements of your course between the dates of 29 November 2025 and 17 July 2026 and received faculty notification of this result.

Note that any provisional marks not finalised will mean that you are not able to attend graduation in January.

It may be possible for you to defer your attendance at graduation to a future schedule, but you must register this request with the graduation team by visiting the graduation booking link and confirming your deferral request.

If you or your guests have specific access or disability requirements, special seating arrangements or require support on the day, please confirm this when you book your place on the student booking system by 5 June at 5pm.

We will do our best to accommodate these, but may not be able to organise support on the day where we’ve not been previously notified.

All academic tuition fee debts to the university must be cleared in full or you will not be able to graduate. Please clear any other debts such as accommodation, library or AV equipment charges.

Payment plan arrangements for tuition fees agreed with the university will not permit attendance at the graduation ceremony until academic tuition fee debts are cleared in full.

Student enquiries about paying debts can be directed to income@dmu.ac.uk.

You can still book your place at the ceremony but you must clear the tuition fee debt before the ceremony in order to be permitted to graduate.

Library books can be returned on the day of your ceremony at the Kimberlin Library or taking them along to Curve Theatre where you can drop them off at the registration desk.

Graduation is a formal event, so we recommend that you dress smartly. The gallery on our main page can give you some visual pointers.

All graduands must wear the university’s full academic dress hired in advance of the ceremony and the university's appointed academic dress supplier and designer of the specific DMU embossed hood for each award is William Northam Ltd who supply the hire of the official DMU branded graduation gowns.

For more information about hiring your robe, visit William Northam.

The robe is all black and the hood varies in colour depending on the subject; the main hood colour is an amber-gold. We recommend comfortable shoes you can walk a reasonable distance in. We reserve the right to refuse entry to graduands dressed inappropriately.

Read more information about academic dress at De Montfort University.

Double check the time of your ceremony on the schedule.

We need you to have arrived at Curve, collected your robe and hat (and photos if required), collected your guest and student ticket(s) at Student Registration and be seated at the Curve Theatre 30 minutes before the ceremony starts.

Before heading out for the day, double check that you have:

• Email confirmations of your student booking (this can be on your phone or you may prefer to print a copy)
• Robe and photography booking confirmation
• Depending on where you are planning to park, you might want to bring along comfy footwear too.
• Please note there is no storage facility for luggage and large bags at Curve Theatre.

All tickets are collected from us on the day at Curve Theatre at the Student Registration Desk.

Depending on your travel plans, check with the National Highways for any disruptions that might delay your route.

For guests who can't attend in person, we stream our graduation ceremonies live so that friends and family of our graduating students can join in the celebrations from afar. Livestreams will be hosted at the top of our main graduations page. There’s also a screening room in Rehearsal Room 2 on the Mezzanine Floor.

Depending on how late you arrive, we will do all we can to place you in the ceremony. This is likely to mean that you will graduate out of the original order of names, but your name will still be announced. It may be necessary to graduate late students in the next scheduled ceremony.

Before your graduation day it’s worth planning your journey to the university. The ceremony, robe collection and photography is based at Curve Theatre, Leicester. The venue address is:
Curve Theatre
60 Rutland Street
Leicester
LE1 1SB

Travelling by car

There are several options to park in the city centre, although it can be very congested - so allow plenty of time to make your way to Curve Theatre from your parking spot.

Whilst we cannot guarantee car parking space availability at any given time, we’d like to highlight the following car parks have a large number of spaces along with access provision.

• Highcross Shopping Centre (John Lewis, LE1 4QJ/Rooftop, LE1 4FY) – Two multi-storey car parks, with cheaper day rates available at their website. After 5pm, parking evening flat rate is £2.50 until 6am the following day.
• Leicester Railway Station Car Park (LE1 1PG) – Daily off-peak evening flat rate £2, Monday – Sunday 18:00 – 2:30.
• Haymarket Centre Multi-Storey (LE1 3HR) – Hourly rate, £6.30 for up to four hours.

Further information about parking in the city

Travelling by train

Leicester Train station is mainly served by East Midlands Railway with hourly services connecting Leicester to Nottingham, London, Lincoln, Sheffield and Cross Country trains running between Leicester, Cambridge, Birmingham and Stanstead Airport. It’s about a 20 minute walk to Curve Theatre from the train station.

For more information visit either

• National Rail
• East Midlands Rail

Travelling by bus

There are two bus stations in the city, Haymarket and St Margaret's. A number of bus routes operate through and around the city – these are:

• Arriva Midlands
• First Leicester
• Kinchbus
• Centrebus
• Skylink (operated by Kinchbus)
• National Express
• Stagecoach Bus

It is recommended you contact the bus company directly to enquire about routes and fares.

When you arrive at Curve, head straight to Rehearsal Rooms 4 and 5, second floor to collect your robe.

To manage crowd congestion, guests cannot accompany students when they collect their robe but can either meet up in Rehearsal Room 1 for photographs (if needed) or in the Café and Bar areas on the ground floor.

Please note that there’s likely to be a queue for robe collection.

For more information on robing and photography timings, visit our robe hire and photography page.

All students collect their ticket from the Student Registration Desk, found on the ground floor next to Curve Box Office; it’s here you can check your name pronunciation with our announcers if you need to – please note student names are read out in full without nicknames and abbreviations.

You’ll receive a commemorative Graduation Brochure to keep, this will have a full list of courses, student names and prizes. Degree classifications are not listed in the brochure or read out at the ceremony.

Leave your bag and personal belongings with your guests; you can take your phone in with you. Unfortunately there is no secure storage area for bags and personal belongings.

Students are seated in the Studio in Curve Theatre, there will be DMU and Curve staff there to guide you to the right seat.

The ceremony is usually 90 minutes long, longer if there’s an honorary degree conferred. Despite that, each individual's moment onstage can feel short-lived, so it’s important to make the most of every second. Smile - the cameras will be rolling, and we welcome plenty of applause for every student!

The Order of Proceedings are:

• The ceremony officially begins with the academic procession of the Chancellor (or Pro Chancellor), Vice Chancellor (who is the Presiding Officer), Deans, Executive and Senior Academic staff of the university and their invited guests, who will process into the Auditorium from two separate doors. Students and guests are asked to stand (if able) whilst the Academic Procession enters
• The Chancellor or Pro Chancellor will give a welcome speech
• The Vice Chancellor (or nominee) will give a speech
• The De Montfort Students Union representative will give a speech
• There is a video featuring different students from the university
• Live performance of a song
• If the university is conferring an honorary degree, the honorand will receive a citation, the Honorary Award and then give a speech
• The Vice Chancellor requests that names of the graduands are announced
• The Name Reader announces the name of the faculty, level of academic award, course title and graduand - your degree classification won't be read out
• Students are guided from their seat, in order, to wait to cross the platform. There is a final check of your robe and hat
• Students cross the platform, and the Chancellor, seated in the middle of the front row in a gold chair, will acknowledge each student by touching the tip of their hat; in return, students doff their hat to the Chancellor
• Towards the end of the platform, the Vice Chancellor (or her nominee) will be waiting to greet you. Students must also doff their hats to the Vice Chancellor who will return the gesture
• Your moment of crossing the stage will be captured on video as a clip. This will be emailed to you after the ceremony
• Students will receive an envelope to lots of applause
• Students are guided off the platform and directed back to their seat where they will receive their certificate
• After the final student is announced, the Vice Chancellor will formally close the ceremony
• Photographs of students from inside the Studio will be shown on the screens
• Closing music will signal for the Academic Platform to exit and guests will give a final applause to all graduands
• DMU staff will signal to graduands to leave their seat and make their way out of the Auditorium

There will be DMU and Curve staff on hand to guide you through each step of the day.

How to doff

Graduands doff their hat to the Chancellor and the Vice Chancellor. It’s a very straight forward gesture; you simply place your right hand on the edge of your hat and tilt your head towards the Chancellor and Vice Chancellor as you pass by or approach them. Just a gentle tip forward is fine!

Your full name will be announced as it is printed on your degree certificate. Nicknames and/or abbreviations are not announced on the day.

 

Straight after the ceremony you can meet up with your friends and guests outside Curve. Don’t forget to take all your belongings with you.

When you’ve taken all the photos you need, please return your robe to the Student Returns area, Mezzanine floor, unless you have agreed an extended hire period with William Northam.

If you didn’t have time to have your photos taken before the ceremony, the photography studios will be open until 5pm for ceremonies that begin at 2pm and 7pm for ceremonies that begin at 5pm.

Please take great care of your degree certificate, as there is a charge to replace it. If you believe there’s an error on your certificate, then let us know on the Registration Desk and we will look into this for you, we won’t be able to solve the matter on the day. If you are unable to attend your graduation ceremony, your certificate will be posted to you. Please note you cannot send someone else to collect the document on your behalf.

 

Survey

You will receive an email inviting you to participate in a survey about your graduation experience and we’d be very grateful if you could spare the time to complete this. The outcomes are always carefully considered and inform our approach for the next graduation cycle. Thank you.

Celebrate your graduation, remember your experience and share your big moment with a StageClip personalised video. The video is customised to focus on you and your special moment of graduating. It’s easy to save and share with your friends and family using all major social media platforms.

Within hours of your graduation ceremony you will receive an email with a link to your own, personalised StageClip video, so that you can capture the moment and share it forever.

Make sure you smile and wave as you cross the stage!

See a StageClip example