The cloakroom tag is the smallest part of your cloakroom and yet the most important. It connects a guest to their coat. If it gets lost or mixed up, your team faces a search that nobody needs at peak times.
Today, coat check tickets come in three forms: paper, plastic or metal, and digital on a smartphone. This comparison shows you their strengths and weaknesses and which questions to ask before you decide.
Paper tags: cheap to buy, effortful to run
The classic tear-off tag has two halves with the same number. One half goes on the hanger, the guest gets the other.
What speaks for it:
- low purchase costs and no technology
- quick to understand, even for new temporary staff
- works without power or network
What to watch out for:
- Paper tears, gets wet and ends up in the washing machine.
- You have to reorder rolls, store them and get them ready for every event.
- If a paper tag is lost, your team only has the guest’s description to go on.
- After the event, you have no figures unless you count by hand.
Plastic and metal tags: robust, but in circulation
Reusable tags made of plastic or metal often hang as a matching pair on the hanger and with the guest. They last longer than paper and can be printed with a logo.
What speaks for them:
- robust and reusable
- easy to read, even in low light
- no reordering for every event
What to watch out for:
- Guests accidentally take tags home. Your stock shrinks.
- Tags have to be collected, sorted and counted after every event.
- If one is lost, you have the same problem as with paper: the assignment depends on a small item in the guest’s pocket.
Digital cloakroom tags: assignment on the smartphone
With a digital cloakroom tag, the guest doesn’t get a physical tag. Instead, they receive a code on their smartphone, for example as a wallet pass. Your team scans this code at drop-off and at pickup.
What speaks for it:
- No paper tags to reorder, store or hand out.
- Many guests have their smartphone with them anyway.
- Every drop-off is recorded digitally. After the event, you can see how busy it was.
What to watch out for:
- Your team needs smartphones and an internet connection. tapcoat needs a connection, but not a fast one: a scan only sends a small amount of data. A mobile hotspot makes a sensible fallback.
- You need a clear fallback for guests without a smartphone or with a flat battery.
- Your team has to practice the new process once.
Comparison at a glance
| Criterion | Paper | Plastic/metal | Digital |
|---|---|---|---|
| Purchase | low, ongoing | one-off, restock after losses | software and your team’s devices |
| Material in circulation | yes, consumed | yes, losses possible | no |
| Lost tag | search by description | search by description | code can be retrieved again if saved |
| Figures after the event | only by counting | only by counting | recorded digitally |
| Dependency | no technology | no technology | smartphone and network |
Lost coat check tickets: a fixed process helps
Whatever tag you use, sooner or later a guest arrives without one. Without a fixed process, everyone at the counter decides differently, and the line waits. With classic coat check tickets, this process has proven itself:
- Ask the guest to step aside: Pickup for the other guests continues.
- Take a description: Color, type, brand, contents of pockets. Only show the item once the description matches.
- Wait until the end: Many venues only hand out without a tag once pickup has largely finished. Then there is less to choose from.
- Check and record identity: Ask for ID, note the name and time.
With digital cloakroom tags, this happens less often, but it can still happen, for example with a flat battery. You need a rule for that too. Typical cases are in the support center under Special cases on site.
Branding on the tag
Cloakroom tags are also an advertising space. Plastic tags can be printed with a logo, paper tags with a sponsor message. Digital tags show the event and the cloakroom on the smartphone. Own branding is possible – what your plan includes is shown on the pricing page.
Five questions for your decision
- How many events do you run a year? With many events, the ongoing effort for paper and collecting tags weighs more heavily.
- How often do tags get lost? Ask your team how often they search at the end of a night.
- Do your guests arrive with tickets on their smartphones? Then the step to a digital tag is small.
- How stable is the network at the cloakroom? Test it in advance. Notes on this are in the support center under Network and internet connection.
- Do you want to analyze after the event? If you want to plan staff and space more precisely, you need figures.
Many venues combine both, by the way: a digital tag as standard, plus a small supply of classic tags for exceptions.
How the digital cloakroom tag works with tapcoat
With tapcoat’s digital cloakroom pass, every item gets a fixed location and the guest gets the hanger location number in their wallet pass. The pass shows the event, the cloakroom and the hanger location number. Guests don’t need the tapcoat app. They save the pass to Apple Wallet or Google Wallet, or open it in their browser.
If a guest hasn’t saved the pass, they open the tapcoat landing page in their browser. The same QR code is shown there. And if your guests already bring a code, such as an event ticket, Self Check-in can turn that code into their coat check ticket. What your plan includes is shown on the pricing page.
For clubs with many nights a year, doing away with paper and collected tags makes a real difference.
Want to try coat check tickets without paper? Sign up for tapcoat for free – the Free plan is permanently free, and you can book add-ons as needed.
