Changing room

A changing room, locker room, dressing room (usually in a sports, theater or staff context) or changeroom (regional use) is a room or area designated for changing one's clothes. Changing rooms are provided in a semi-public situation to enable people to change clothes in privacy, either individually or on a gender basis.

Separate changing rooms may be provided for men and women, or there may be a non-gender specific open space with individual cubicles or stalls. Sometimes a person may change his or her clothes in a toilet cubicle of a washroom. Many changing rooms include washrooms and showers. Sometimes a changing room exists as a small portion of a washroom. For example, the men's and women's washrooms in Toronto's Dundas Square (which includes a waterplay area) each include a change area which is a blank counter space at the end of a row of sinks. In this case, the facility is primarily a washroom, and its use as a changing room is minimal, since only a small percentage of users change into bathing suits.

Larger changing rooms 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 changing rooms are often large open rooms with benches against the walls. Some do not have a roof, providing just the barrier necessary to prevent persons outside from seeing in.

Various types of changing rooms exist.

Changing stalls are small stalls where clothers can be changed in privacy. Clothes are usually stored in lockers. There are usually no separate areas for men and women. They are often combined with gender-separated communal showers. Most public pools have changing facilities of this kind alongside communal changing rooms.

Locker rooms are thus named because they provide lockers for the storage of one's belongings. Alternatively, they may have a locker room attendant who will keep a person's belongings until one comes to retrieve them. Locker rooms are usually open spaces where people change together, but there are separate areas, or separate locker rooms, for men and women. Sometimes they are used in swimming complexes.

Locking devices used in locker rooms have traditionally been key or coin lockers, or lockers that are secured with a combination lock. Newer locker rooms may be automated, with robotic machines to store clothes, with such features as a fingerprint scanner to enrol and for later retrieval. Locker rooms in some waterparks use a microchip equipped wristband. The same wristband that unlocks the lockers can be used to purchase food and drinks and other items in the waterpark.

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