Student life in 2020 was challenging, and whilst we worked hard to make more happen last year, this was a chance to get back to doing the things we love.
For students starting in 2021, students who started virtually in 2020, students joining as postgrads after a year and a half of disruption – Welcome 2021 was an opportunity to do all the things we'd missed so much over the past 18 months.
Together with our incredible clubs and societies, we delivered the biggest Welcome events programme ever at UCL.
523 online and in-person events took place between Monday 20 September and Sunday 3 October, the largest and most diverse collection of events we've ever delivered. To put this into context, in 2019 we delivered 174 events across the first two weeks.
This article shows a snapshot of our 2021 Welcome activity, and what we achieved. Unless specified, the figures relate to the two-week period from 20 September to 3 October.
Welcome 2021 in Numbers
→ We delivered 523 events, up from 174 in 2019
→ 73 live performances across 6 days of activity in the Main Quad
→ More than 29,000 tickets booked for events
→ Over 7,300 tickets booked for nights out across London
→ 8,700 students attended our two-day Welcome Fair
→ 90% of Welcome events were alcohol-free
→ More than 7,400 students joined a club or society during Welcome, up from 2,319 in 2019
→ We increased views of our website by 112%
We’re here to help students make the most of their time at UCL, to help them feel part of the UCL community and help them achieve the things they want to during their time here. We’re the route to more than 320 Clubs and Societies, countless volunteering opportunities, events, great places to eat, drink and chill in, an Advice Service when students need it, and if students want to make lasting change at UCL, we can help them do that too.
Welcome is our chance to connect thousands of students with opportunities to do more at UCL. We want students to form friendships, find groups to join, experience new things, learn about the Union, UCL and London as they settle into university life and have fun.
After the past 18 months, where student-life as we know it was put on hold, we were more determined than ever to make Welcome to UCL extra special.
We outlined what students could expect, and what was shaping our decision making, early in the summer. Read our article, outlining what students could expect during Welcome 2021.
Getting together in-person really matters. Meeting new people, discovering new things, experiencing London. It’s so much a part of students' experience and was almost completely missing last year.
It felt like the wait would last forever. After perhaps the most challenging 18 months many people had ever experienced, this Welcome fortnight was always going to feel like a pivotal moment.
Students booked 29,902 tickets to Welcome events
Many events didn't require advance booking, so we're confident we managed to reach almost everyone starting at UCL this year.
Anything you can imagine
Our events programme is diverse, different and designed to help all new students take part.
From an LGBQ+ and Trans Welcome Breakfast for the early birds to Bandeoke (Karaoke with a live band...) in the evening. Exploring London through classic open-top bus tours and day trips to Kew Gardens. From UV Dodgeball to Feminist society speed friending socials. We had it all covered.
All of our events are designed to help people meet others, try new things and have fun. But we also know how difficult starting university can be, so we teamed up with Student Support and Wellbeing to offer wellbeing and support focussed sessions like mindfulness and meditation, one-to-one peer support sessions, and advice service drop-ins.
356 in-person events
A campus transformed
We showcased the incredible talent in our clubs and societies and created an outdoor event space for thousands of students to gather safely.
Two live music stages were built on campus ready for our first major event - a showcase of our cultural societies and food festival.
From Tuesday 28 September to Sunday 3 October, we hosted 73 live performances, drawing crowds of thousands to the main quad.
73 live performances
Clubs and societies sang, danced, played and performed at the heart of campus.
Photo from our Reclaim 2020 event at Lafayette Kings Cross, for everyone and anyone who missed out last year.
Going out-out...
For many new students, exploring London's world-renowned nightlife is top of their list. From Ministry of Sound to Fabric, London has some of the most exciting clubs in the world and we organise events in London's biggest and best venues, helping students experience the best of London's clubs as safely as possible.
This has been missing from the student experience for 18 months. We were determined to deliver.
Venues asked that attendees show a negative lateral flow test result from the previous 24 hour period before entry. This helped give students peace of mind when venturing out.
7,384 tickets sold for big nights out
Whilst going out is an important part of student life for many new arrivals, the vast majority of our events are alcohol-free, family-friendly and accessible to all.
474 events (90%) were alcohol free
Adapting to the virtual world was an essential part of student life last year, it opened up opportunities for students all over the globe to meet like-minded people and experience new things.
179 online events during Welcome
This year, anticipating that many students would be isolating during the week before term started, we ensured our events schedule focussed on online events from 20 September, before shifting the focus to in-person from 27 September. During the week of 20 September, we delivered 167 events in total, 105 virtually.
62% online events in Welcome week one
During the week of 27 September, we held 356 events, 74 (20%) were online.
Some of our most popular virtual events were the online Speed Friending sessions, where students were introduced through interactive get-to-know-you games lasting an hour.
1,652 students joined an online Speed Friending session
Our virtual events programme is as diverse as anything delivered in person. From Tea & Knitting with UCL KnitSoc to an Introduction to British Politics. From Virtual Escape Games to LGBT+ Games Nights. Not to mention Project Active's beginner-friendly virtual exercise classes ranging from Vinyasa Flow Yoga to Postgraduate Bollywood Dancing!
673 students joined an online Project Active class
Our virtual events programme helped students away from campus to join in with the UCL experience.
The highlight of the virtual events programme was the Digital Welcome Fair - an interactive platform showcasing all 327 clubs and societies.
Welcome Fair is the biggest event of Welcome fortnight. It's two days of clubs, societies, live music, freebies and thousands of students keen to explore everything the Union has to offer.
This year we introduced several measures to help make the weekend safe for everyone attending.
- We halved the number of club and society stallholders and gave them twice as much space. Each day a new set of 200 stallholders attended. Every club and society had a chance to attract new members, whilst students attending had the space to more easily socially distance themselves.
- We extended the opening hours of the Fair, adding four additional hours across the weekend.
- We asked students to book a ticket to attend. Students booked for a specific timeslot, meaning attendees were spaced out throughout the day, minimising the risk of overcrowding.
8,700 tickets were booked for the fair
All over campus...
The Welcome Fair takes place all over campus, with stallholders spread out across the Wilkins Building, main quad, lower refectory and JBR.
In the main quad, the Portico provides the perfect backdrop for live performances from our incredible clubs and societies.
212 stallholders each day
Digital Welcome Fair
For those who couldn't attend the Welcome Fair in person, we brought the experience to them - we streamed 10 hours of live interviews, performances, competitions and more.
73,941 virtual stalls visited
There were 73,941 digital Welcome Fair stalls viewed over the Welcome Fair weekend, with more the 5,000 people virtually attending each day.
Clubs & Societies
Once students have found and tried clubs and societies, their next priority is to join the groups that interest them most.
7,473 students joined a club during Welcome
By the end of Welcome (3 October), 7,473 students had taken up 21,580 memberships to clubs and societies. Up from 4,515 taking up 14,871 club and society memberships in 2020. This 65% increase is the biggest jump in memberships we've ever had.
Volunteering
Volunteering is a big part of the student culture here at UCL – and connecting with the communities around us in London is even more important than ever.
We delivered in-person and online volunteering events before and during Welcome, highlighting the fantastic range of opportunities on offer. We evolved our Volunteering Fairs, running 5 days of fairs on campus in teaching week two, giving recruiters and students more space to meet safely.
700 students signed up to our Volunteering Service during Welcome
We relaunched our online opportunity finder with lots of new ways for students to find the perfect role.
There are already 262 different volunteering opportunities on offer
Digital
Over the summer, we launched a new website - upgrading all of our backend systems, and making improvements across the entire site.
We knew we'd have increased traffic this year, so our website was built to handle more visitors than ever.
112% increase in visitors compared to 2020
Students were determined to find things to do - our What's On calendar and events were viewed 427,286 times.
Over the Welcome period, we nearly doubled the number of pages viewed across our website.
1.6m page views during Welcome, up from 840k in 2020
Active Bystander
We want all members of our community to be Active Bystanders and put a stop to sexual misconduct, bullying and harassment in any form online or on campus.
Every year we offer training and support to all new and returning students. Our workshops are usually delivered in-person, but this year we’ve moved everything online - even developing a new online training tool on our website.
Students are invited to take an online module, followed by a 40 minute Live Workshop Discussion via MS Teams where they can explore scenarios, and practically apply intervention techniques.
By the end of Welcome Week, 1,300 students had taken our Active Bystander training.