I went to my masters graduation this past week, and wouldn't have missed it for the world.
Now Dal divides up the convocations, so only the Faculty of Management went last Tuesday, and only the graduate students in the afternoon (undergrads in the morning). What this did was keep the generic speeches short as the president, et al would be so repetitive they'd keep it short, causing them to inturn tell the dean to keep his short, and the validvictorian. The chancellor didn't speak, and there was no salutorian, no special awards, just calling out our names, getting our degree, pictures taken, and sitting down. Our class goofed off, fooled around, joked, laughed all before the event, chuckled to ourselves during, and all got together for drinks that evening, it was really great.
Also you could do something to be remembered, such as taking your OWN picture with the chancellor, which I did
it got quite the laugh from the crowd. I went back to my class mates with thumbs up, laughter, and praise for the stunt. I had some random graduate's grandfather come up to me in the main lobby after the ceremony and ask if I was the guy who took his own picture, then went on for about 5 minutes about how great that was and how he loved it.
In short, if you're a small class, go, joke around, and goof off the whole time with your firends. Bring an extra digital camera to record things form both points of view (the student, and give one to the 'rents) and think of it as a lecture where you have to entertain yourself.