In July, the company delivered 500 ceremonies for 50 UK Universities
First Sight Media, the production and streaming specialist, has closed out its busiest graduation season to date, delivering 500 ceremonies across 50 universities throughout July alone.
The scale of the operation: 450 hours of footage captured and a crew of 100 deployed across the country, working back-to-back ceremonies to make sure every graduate’s moment on stage was captured, streamed and delivered without a hitch.
Graduation season is one of the most demanding periods in First Sight Media’s events calendar: multiple ceremonies a day, tight turnarounds between sessions, and zero room for technical error on a day that families travel across the world to witness in person. For First Sight Media, July’s numbers reflect not just the volume of work but the reliability required to deliver it consistently, ceremony after ceremony, university after university.
That reliability is exactly what stood out to the University of Derby, one of the 50 institutions First Sight Media worked with this season.
“What we love about working with First Sight Media is that we never have to worry about any of the technical aspects of the process. We know they have it in hand, and we can get on with every other aspect of graduation,” said Antonia Fox, student records and awards manager, University of Derby
It’s a sentiment First Sight Media hears often from the universities it partners with this season, among them London School of Economics and Political Science, Durham University, and Lancaster University; institutions that return to First Sight Media year after year to handle the technical production behind one of the most important days in a student’s academic life.
Rich Belcher, managing director of First Sight Media, said, “Graduation season is one of the busiest and most rewarding times of the year at First Sight Media. Each year, our production operation becomes stronger, smoother and more ambitious, and this July was no exception. I’m incredibly proud of the entire team for delivering another successful season and helping graduates, families and institutions celebrate such an important milestone.”
Behind those numbers is a tightly coordinated operation. At a typical ceremony, First Sight Media’s crews are responsible for full technical production including staging, lighting, sound and camera coverage; live streaming to family and friends unable to attend in person; on-screen graphics and name/award display; and full-ceremony recording delivered to the university afterwards. It’s this end-to-end service, covering everything from the technical build to the final edit, that allows university teams to focus on the day itself rather than the production behind it.
With this year’s ceremonies now delivered, the team’s focus turns to the upcoming exhibition and conference season that commences immediately after the summer break, but July’s numbers stand as a marker of just how much live production it takes to make a graduation day look effortless for so many students.
