Changeroom

A changeroom is a place where people go to change their clothes. Usually this is for privacy so that they can be away from other people, or away from people of the other gender.

Changerooms may have individual changing cubicles, or stalls. Sometimes washrooms are used for changing clothes, since a person can readily change in a toilet cubicle. Many changerooms include washrooms and showers. Sometimes a changeroom exists as a small portion of the washroom. For example, the men's and women's washrooms in Toronto's Dundas Square each include a change area which is a blank counter space at the end of the row of sinks. In this case, the facility is primarily a washroom, and its use as a changeroom represents only about one sixth of the space.

Changerooms are usually found at public beaches, or other bathing areas, where most of the space is for changing, and minimal washroom space is included. Beach-style changerooms are often large rooms with benches around the outside, and some have no roof, providing only the minimum necessary barrier to prevent persons of the other gender from seeing in.

Changeroom or "change room"

Sometimes a changeroom is referred to as a "change room", but such terminology leads to a non-uniqueness, e.g. the phrase "change room" can also mean for a person to move from one room to another room, or to change a room booking (e.g. to change rooms at a hotel). "Change rooms at a hotel" could mean one of two things:

• To change a room booking from one room to another, or to change from one room to a different room;
• A place in the hotel, e.g. the public swimming baths or public bathing area, where patrons change their clothes.

For this reason, the term "changeroom" is preferable to the term "change room".

Different kinds of changerooms

Various kinds of changerooms include the following:

• locker rooms are usually gender-specific spaces where clothes are changed and stored;
• fitting rooms or dressing rooms are usually small single-user cubicles where one person at-a-time tries on clothes, either by changing, or by just putting other clothes on top;
• green rooms and trap rooms are usually mixed-gender backstage or under-stage changing spaces;

Locker rooms

Locker rooms are places where clothes can be changed and stored. Locker rooms usually have lockers for locking the clothes in, but they may also have a locker room attendant who receives clothes from users, and then gives them back when the user desires. Locker rooms are usually open spaces where people change together, but there are separate areas, or separate locker rooms, for men and women. Lockers in locker rooms have traditionally been key or coin lockers, or lockers that are secured with a combination lock such as a dudley or Master lock. Newer locker rooms are automated, with robotic machines to store clothes, with such features as a fingerprint scanner to enroll and for later retrieval. Locker rooms in some waterparks, such as Schwaben Quellen, use a microchip equipped wristband. Thus the same wristband that unlocks the lockers can be used to purchase food and drinks and other items in the waterpark. This system was adopted because bathing suits are not permitted in Schwaben Quellen, and there is thus no place for a person to put keys for a locker.

Fitting rooms

Fitting rooms or dressing rooms are rooms where people try on clothes, such as in a department store. The rooms are usually individual rooms in which only one person tries on clothes. People do not always use the fitting rooms to change (to change implies to remove one set of clothes and put on another). Sometimes a person just wants to try on one set of clothes over their other clothes, but would still like to do this in private because it is inappropriate to put clothes on and off over other clothes in public (though tcoin lockers, or lockers that are secured with a combination lock such as a dudley or Master lock. Some are automated, with robotic machines to store clothes, with such features as a fingerprint scanner to enroll and for later retrieval.o do so is clearly not indecent). Thus fitting rooms may be used for changing, or just for fitting without changing (i.e. fitting on top of other clothes).

Green rooms

A green room is a room in which people change clothes for performance, theatre, or the like. The term green room originates from the old days of outdoor theatre when people would change right behind the stage backdrop, on the grass behind the backdrop, which would hide them from view of the outdoor audience. Thus when theatre moved indoors, the room behind the stage was called the "green room" because it referred to the open green grass behind the stage of times bygone. Green rooms are usually located backstage, but sometimes under the stage, or to the side. When they are located under the stage they are often also called "trap rooms" because many stage setups, especially for magicians, involve a trap door that goes to a room under the stage. In a magic trick, a performer may drop down into the trap room, through the trap door, onto a padded surface like a mattress, to "disappear" and change into another outfit. Green rooms are usually not separated by gender, because performers often operate "like one big happy family" and help each other change. For example, a husband and wife team of circus performers might need to "rig" each other up with various wiring, cabling, safety harnesses, and the like. The green room at Canterbury Theatre in Canada's Wonderland is a large co-ed space in which large numbers of people are usually in various states of undress, including being completely naked at times. Although there are often small gender separated spaces in some green rooms (to meet building codes, etc.), the changing activities of a green room typically spill out into the main area back stage, where there are dressmakers, tailors, and other staff, frantically working on getting everyone ready for the next production. There is little or no time or place for modesty in a green room where "the show must go on" and everyone works together like a team to help each other get dressed, regardless of gender differences. A green room is one of the few changerooms in which nakedness of mixed-gender groups is usually acceptable.

Changeroom security

Because of the privacy afforded by changerooms, they create a problem in the tradeoff between security and privacy, wherein it may be possible for crime to be perpetrated by persons using the cover of privacy to sell drugs, or steal clothing from a department store. Some department stores have security cameras in the changerooms (See Phil Patton's article "You don't have to smile", excerpt included in ). Some department store fitting rooms post signs such as "keep your underwear on because you are being monitored by security". Other fitting rooms have staff to count out clothing samples and count them back in after each customer is done.

Communal changerooms are less of a problem that fitting rooms, because there is not total privacy. In particular, the perpetrator of a crime would not know whether or not other users might be undercover police or security guards. Also modern changerooms often have labyrinth style entrances that have no door, so that persons of the other gender cannot see in, but security can walk in at any time without the sound of an opening door alerting persons inside. It is this possibility for persons to suddenly appear without warning, that often makes modern style changerooms safe from drug dealing and other crime.