How a hockey rink became a go-to site for local high school graduation ceremonies

For the first two weeks of June, the grass surrounding 3M Arena at Mariucci glitters with graduation cap-shaped confetti.

The 23 high school graduations there this year have come almost back-to-back, sometimes three or four a day. Once the remnants from one school's celebration is cleaned up, in come thousands more revelers from another.

Over the past 15 years, the Minneapolis arena has increasingly become the go-to location for large suburban high schools looking for an indoor, air-conditioned commencement venue that can accommodate about 6,000 people. For those schools, gone are the days of weather-dependent football field graduation ceremonies or limiting tickets to family members who can fit into the school gymnasium.

Hosting the ceremony offsite can take some pressure off school administrators, said Jim Skelly, spokesperson for Anoka-Hennepin Public Schools, which conducted four of its graduation ceremonies at Mariucci on Sunday, each one spaced out by three hours. But it's still a lot of work for both school and facilities staff.

"I'm sure the students have no idea how much goes into this," he said.

Holding multiple commencements in one day is a feat of planning, time management, traffic and parking control, communication, and people-wrangling to ensure that one school crowd can get out before the next one comes in, said Craig Flor, the arena's director of operations.

The university also boosted security measures and police presence this week after a shooting injured two people outside the arena after Wayzata's graduation ceremony last Friday. The U has long required Mariucci attendees to walk through metal detectors and have their bags searched.

After 15 years of hosting such ceremonies, the team has streamlined the logistics, Flor said. Many of the schools start their part of the planning process more than a year in advance, especially if they want a coveted weekend date, which have to be planned around religious holidays.

"It's their show, not mine," Flor said. "I'm just there to facilitate their show and make it the best event they can have."

Still, Flor said 23 ceremonies in less than two weeks might be nearing the limit.

"Capacity-wise, I think we're pretty tapped out."

The popular graduation host

The state's largest school district, Anoka-Hennepin Public Schools, was the first district to seek out Mariucci as a commencement location about 15 years ago. One of the reasons: School leaders didn't want to tear up their football fields with rows of folding chairs. (Anoka High School still holds its at Goodrich Field, but this year, it had to reschedule because of rain.)

In 2011, the Northrop Memorial Auditorium at the U underwent a renovation that reduced the number of seats from 4,800 to about 2,800. That left Mariucci as the only other air-conditioned building on campus that could seat more than 3,000 people.

For large metro-area high schools looking for an off-site graduation, "we became the place by default," Flor said, adding that though Mariucci will never be "as classy as Northrop," his team does its best to make the arena look a little less like a hockey rink.

The spring graduation ceremonies have been a revenue boost for Mariucci, Flor said. Last year's 20 graduations brought in about $200,000.

Skelly, of the Anoka-Hennepin schools, said the base contract fee is $11,000 per day to use the arena with additional charges for event security, police and emergency medical staff, and audio-visual support.

The event staff at the U is used to the traffic and logistical challenges of having thousands of people on campus. But high school graduations bring a different crowd of drivers and families who have maybe never navigated the campus, said Benton Schnabel, assistant director for parking operations at the U.

"Very few people bring out grandma for a Gopher basketball game, but they will bring her for Billy's graduation," Schnabel said. That means "drop-off traffic" near the arena entrance can be four or five times higher than for other campus events.

Some schools bus the graduating seniors to the arena, but Anoka-Hennepin schools ask students to drive themselves or have parents drop them off well in advance of the ceremony. While that can lead to traffic headaches, it might not be entirely new to teen drivers, said Champlin Park commencement speaker Kamar Sati.

"Over the past four years, we have survived many tests and deadlines, a presidential election, the evolution of artificial intelligence, and the chaos of leaving the school parking lot," she joked in her speech.

Chaotic celebrations

Joshua DuBois' parents knew to pick a meeting spot in advance so their son could find them in the crush of people coming out of Andover High School's commencement ceremony on Sunday.

"It was chaotic," DuBois said after finding his way through the crowd as security guards shouted reminders to families to congregate right outside the door.

Teashia Parker, the sister of Champlin Park graduate Jayden King, said seeing the crowd in front of the arena between ceremonies was a bit intimidating. She and some of the more than 30 family members who went to celebrate King got in line at the door more than an hour early, holding paper tickets. Champlin Park was the only school on Sunday that required families to have tickets.

"It's a little messy to have such a big ceremony," Parker said. "But that gives these seniors a sense of importance and shows them how much support they have."

Marsha Nyabicha, an Andover graduate, said she was glad commencement wasn't held at the school, even if it meant having to leave home early to brave campus traffic.

"We've been in the school for four years," she said. "This gave us a different space to feel all we've accomplished."

As graduates spilled onto the grass outside the arena Sunday, snapping photos or calling their parents to try to locate them in the throng, Flor was also on his phone, running a quick calculation.

After each commencement, he updates a running tally. By 9 p.m. Sunday, after the 20th ceremony (including some U college commencements), he estimated that more than 12,700 graduates had walked across the stage at Mariucci. And he still had more than a dozen to go.

"Just another day," he said, before ensuring the high school's banner was taken down, ready for the next one.