Graduation Dilemma - Suggestions needed!

[Moliphino]

Where d o you live? graduation here is open to the community and everyone goes. I have never heard of tickets being used for a gradutation - that would limit the amount of people able to attend

The local high school uses Symphony Hall for graduation. The usual expectation is for parents, siblings, and maybe grandparents to attend.

 

[anniemae]

like others said, I would decline both invites. I can't imagine anyone other than parents and siblings wanting to. attend. Maybe the celebration after. That's what our family did, invited everyone to the graduation party, not the ceremony.

 

[pindecisive]

My niece and nephew are both graduating HS on the same night/time. The graduations are in 2 different locations. Since I obviously can't be at both, how do I choose which one to attend??

If you attend neither, I'd offer to take them both out to dinner after.

I didn't walk for my AA, and only walked in the honors ceremony for my BA - my mother attended. She sent out announcements (I didn't want to) but I did appreciate the money and gifts everyone sent. It was unexpected and since I was a starving college student, very appreciated.

 

[Moliphino]

like others said, I would decline both invites. I can't imagine anyone other than parents and siblings wanting to. attend. Maybe the celebration after. That's what our family did, invited everyone to the graduation party, not the ceremony.

Heck, when my siblings were graduating I didn't really want to attend. Graduations are boring! I think for one of them I brought a small radio with ear buds and listened to a baseball game.

 

[sam_gordon]

All 3 of our kids graduations we had only 4 tickets. Lots of graduates, limited space in football stadium. It's been that way for over 40 years.

How the hell is there limited space in a football stadium?

 

[snikki]

I feel nieces and nephews graduations are important and would try to attend one and maybe attend the “after party” (dinner at the house if they do that) for the other kid. I have no idea how I would choose.

Our HS graduation is outdoors with no tickets. If it’s moved indoors it’s 6 tickets per kid.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

How the hell is there limited space in a football stadium?

High school stadium, not professional one. Graduating class typically around 1,000 students, stadium holds about 4500. Means 4 tickets per graduate.

 

[sam_gordon]

1k students for a HS graduating class? Holy cow, I thought our school was pretty big w/400-500 in a class. You have double!

High school stadium, not professional one. Graduating class typically around 1,000 students, stadium holds about 4500. Means 4 tickets per graduate.

 

[AppleDumpling]

Where d o you live? graduation here is open to the community and everyone goes. I have never heard of tickets being used for a gradutation - that would limit the amount of people able to attend

Yes, that’s the idea.

We are in NJ, graduation is at the football stadium, 6 tickets unless it rains, then 2 for the gym.

Exact same situation here in suburban NY. Audience sits in the bleachers, students on the field, plan B indoors if it rains. It’s been the tradition for most schools in the area for decades, though a few have switched to indoor venues, such as a local concert hall. At DS’ (only child) graduation, it was DH and I, plus his only living grandparent and my sister (single with no kids, wanted to come). He gave his 2 extra tickets to friends who could use them. We had a party at our house a few days later with extended family and some close friends. Announcements are unheard of around here.

 

[verleniahall]

Yes, that’s the idea.


Exact same situation here in suburban NY. Audience sits in the bleachers, students on the field, plan B indoors if it rains. It’s been the tradition for most schools in the area for decades, though a few have switched to indoor venues, such as a local concert hall. At DS’ (only child) graduation, it was DH and I, plus his only living grandparent and my sister (single with no kids, wanted to come). He gave his 2 extra tickets to friends who could use them. We had a party at our house a few days later with extended family and some close friends. Announcements are unheard of around here.

Why in the world would you want to limit the amount of people at graduation? They will all end up at the graduation parties anyway.

 

[Moliphino]

How the hell is there limited space in a football stadium?

This is what the typical high school football stadium (word used pretty loosely) looks like around me:

 

[AppleDumpling]

Why in the world would you want to limit the amount of people at graduation? They will all end up at the graduation parties anyway.

Because they don’t have any place large enough to hold more, and want to hold the ceremony on school property where it’s traditionally always been done.

How the hell is there limited space in a football stadium?

Not sure where you live (in the South perhaps?), but in my region of the Northeast, high school football is just not a big deal. Mostly the only people who attend are fellow students and family and friends of the players. And some parents of the marching band kids and cheerleaders. We do not have a STADIUM, we have a football FIELD with bleachers on one side, which I’d guess to hold several hundred, but not thousands of people.

 

[HopperFan]

1k students for a HS graduating class? Holy cow, I thought our school was pretty big w/400-500 in a class. You have double!

Not sure where you live (in the South perhaps?), but in my region of the Northeast, high school football is just not a big deal. Mostly the only people who attend are fellow students and family and friends of the players. And some parents of the marching band kids and cheerleaders. We do not have a STADIUM, we have a football FIELD with bleachers on one side, which I’d guess to hold several hundred, but not thousands of people.

Most schools around here have 600-1000 per graduating class. Most use indoor facilities only because I live in the South, hot and rain = ruins graduations. But if they were to use stadium most hold maybe 3000-3500 so puts you at 6 tickets. So while our stadiums are larger than up north, still not large enough for the size of most of our schools.

DS teaches where 500 per class, they along with most schools in surrounding 3 counties use an arena that holds 13,000. BUT they only open the bottom ring so they just stick with the 6 tickets per graduate. Been so common here for so long no one ever expects to be invited to high school graduations.

 

[jalapeno_pretzel]

Why in the world would you want to limit the amount of people at graduation? They will all end up at the graduation parties anyway.

So that there will be enough seats for everyone?? My HS graduation (nearly 30 years ago) had 400+ kids, and was held at our civic center. Still limited to 6 tickets per kid. That's 2400 people, 2800 including the graduates. And today's classes (in the same area) are even larger than that. Not sure where you are that has venues that hold a lot more than that.

 

[_19disnA]

Our experience as well. The typical h.s. 'stadium' where I grew up had seating for a few hundred and the seats on the 'home team' side were larger then the 'away' side. Even if planned for outdoors, we also had a backup plan for the indoor h.s. auditorium in the event of inclement weather which is common this time of year. A sudden electrical storm would cause the proceedings to move indoors to a venue that generally holds fewer people. I can't recall being invited to the h.s. graduation ceremony for any of our cousins. Parents/siblings/grandparents were almost always the only ones to attend. When they had a graduation party at their home, that was always some other day and usually on a weekend.

Getting a graduation 'announcement' is not an invite to attend the actual graduation ceremony. OP is new to the forum, so other alternatives based on their particular situation might be to have one spouse attend the one graduation while the other spouse attends the other. Creative solutions could include tossing a coin to see which one they might attend together.

 

[tinkerbellandpeterpan]

1k students for a HS graduating class? Holy cow, I thought our school was pretty big w/400-500 in a class. You have double!

My high school graduating class was just over 1100 people (1,132 to be exact....God only knows how I remember that random fact). So yep, they limited tickets. I believe it was 4 per person, but can't swear to it.

As to the OP's question, I personally would avoid any graduation possible. But it sounds like you want to attend if you can. As other's have said, if there are significantly less people attending one over the other then that's the one I would choose to attend. Otherwise I would stay home so as not to offend anyone and attend both celebrations/parties (fingers crossed they coordinated so they don't overlap).

 

[nw6675]

OP is new to the forum, so other alternatives...

 

[mjkacmom]

How the hell is there limited space in a football stadium?

Ours is a turfed field with lines for football and baseball, cement bleachers on one side, small metal bleachers on the other. It was built at least 75 years ago. It’s in the center of town nestled between the middle school, high school, firehouse/police station and town hall.

 

[disykat]

Some people here must have small graduating classes.

I sat in overflow for my older brother's graduation back in 1976. If I hadn't gotten in I would have been standing along the fence line of the stadium. My sister got in because she was already in high school and was playing in the band. He had four tickets and our grandparents came, so I was out. I have never in my life been involved in a graduation that didn't have tickets because of space issues, even when they were taking place on a football field. Tickets are the way to enable each student to have several family members there.

Because of marching band, I've been in a whole lot of stadiums that have limited seating!! While football games can use seating on both sides, things like graduations have a front and a back so they generally only use one side. At our son's large university graduation it was a large stadium and they set up the long way so people could sit on three sides, which really helped, but most small stadiums don't have the screens/technology etc. to set up that way and have everyone be able to see.

 

[kymom99]

Why in the world would you want to limit the amount of people at graduation? They will all end up at the graduation parties anyway.

So the families have somewhere to sit