Colloquial name for the airport-like fences (pictures attached)

Question

What is the colloquial name of this type fences? Tape fences?

Internet suggested "retractable belt stanchion set" and "airport fence", but they aren't used only in airports and "retractable belt stanchion set" sounds like a tongue twister, so what do you call them? I'm looking for something more specific than just "fence". Looking up "security fence", it shows solid fences, which is also not what I need.

Sentence example:

• She jumped over the ______ and ran up to the celebrity.

• She jumped over the tape fence and ran up to the celebrity.

Does this make sense? As in, would this make you think of the kind of fence shown in the pictures?

Answer 1

The one in your image is known as a retractable barrier: See

1 Google Image results.

2 Google Ngrams

3. Google books

The Tesla Conspiracy (Digital Edition): How Far Will They Go 2013

The next kiosk also had a retractable barrier and was also inhabited by a similarly uniformed person, this time a man.

Beyond Repair?: Mayan Women’s Protagonism in the Aftermath by Alison Crosby, ‎M. Brinton Lykes · 2019

There was a media circus at the front of the room at this point, with over 30 cameras (still and video) lining the front of the courtroom, pressing up against the retractable barrier that had been set up to divide the public gallery

His Road Homebooks Anna Richland · 2014

“Be strong and call me from the airport in the morning,” her sister said as she ducked under the retractable barrier.

Answer 2

These devices are commonly sold as barrier belts. I have not been able to find a reference that does not include a manufacturer or seller; there are many such and here is one example (not intended as advertising):

Barriers4U

Derived reasonably from:

Cambridge
barrier:
anything used or acting to block someone from going somewhere or from doing something, or to block something from happening

and belt:
a flat strip of material (in a machine that moves along continuously to keep another part turning, or to keep objects on it moving along)

Interestingly, both Cambridge and Merriam Webster associate moving machinery with the use of belt as a flat strip of material. In the airport case, the belt is mobile, but once fixed it no longer moves. In airport use it is a stationary belt.

Answer 3

In crowd control, they are simply called stanchions — short for post and rope stanchions or retractable belt stanchions. You don't have to mention the ropes or belts, unless you need to be specific.

From Queue Solutions:

The correct definition of the word stanchion is an upright bar or post such as a support for a railing. However, the term is commonly used to describe the various form of barriers used to create customer queues (waiting lines). The two basic types are rope barriers and retracting belt barriers.

You can find relevant usage examples at Corpus of Contemporary American English — the stanchions. Here are a few:

She held her hat in one hand; it had come off when she climbed under the stanchions of the Boardwalk.

Today the museum will remove stanchions roping off examples from a second hoard of Benkaim Indian paintings to enter the collection.

The mask's owner insists on the stanchions to keep people back. He doesn't even permit staff to open the case without him present.

Here are a couple from Google Books:

In a millisecond, all thirty of us jumped over the stanchions and swarmed the president. The Secret Service agents started touching the small radios in their ears and talking to one another.
_{Taking the Lead . . . , Dave Alpern (2021)}

When a teenage boy with numerous tattoos tried to cross under the stanchions to jump ahead of the flow of people, rather than walking the zig-zag footpath, a tall male police officer tapped him on the shoulder and asked him to follow him.
_{Christmas Plus . . . , Shirley A. Franklin (2010)}