Switching wristband supplier safely

The encoding scheme is the risk

A printed band is a colour match and a proof. An encoded band has to be accepted by a system configured around whatever the previous supplier did, and that configuration is frequently undocumented at the property because it was set up years ago by somebody who has left. Recover it from the access-control platform or its integrator before ordering, and treat the outgoing supplier as an unreliable source for it.

Never let the old stock run out first

The temptation is to run existing stock to zero to avoid waste, and it converts any transition problem into an immediate operational failure. A deliberate overlap of a few weeks costs a small quantity of bands and means that if the new run needs an adjustment, the property is inconvenienced rather than stopped. This is the single most important line on this page.

Guests notice colour, not suppliers

Nobody at a pool cares who made the band. They do notice when the band they were issued on Monday is a visibly different shade from the one their friend was issued on Friday. Colour must be matched to a physical reference from the outgoing run rather than to a brand hex value, because the previous supplier's interpretation of that value is what guests have actually seen.

Keep the number series continuous

If your issue register runs on sequential numbers, the new run should continue the series rather than restart it. Restarting creates duplicate numbers across two production runs, and duplicate numbers make a revocation register useless at exactly the moment it matters. It costs nothing to specify and is almost always forgotten.