I've run and played with DMs who run at our local conventions (Con of the North, CONvergence, MarsCon), so thought I'd chime in.
It is frustrating, but there's not a lot one DM can do about a noisy room experience -- everybody wants to be heard, but the louder your table gets, the harder it is for other tables to hear, which just escalates the noise problem.
Con of the North had an interesting solution to this problem with their previous hotel -- they used to provide the Con with a bunch of actual guest rooms cleared out for use as activity rooms, since there wasn't really enough conference space to host the con proper. CotN used those single rooms as RPG rooms, neatly avoiding noise problems. Of course, Organized Play wasn't as big a thing in those days; these days, AL or PFS pretty much needs a huge ballroom to host all the events they want, even at a smaller regional con, and that leads to noise.
I'm not sure if I can say that our local cons seem better organized than this than to say that our cons seem organized, period. We use Warhorn to organize sessions, and since DMs sign up for the sessions they're going to run, they know well in advance what games they're running and thus need to prep.
Of course, this can lead to a different problem -- since the Warhorn organizing takes place outside the regular convention schedule, someone who doesn't know about Warhorn who shows up at a table based on the convention schedule might be in for a rude shock. But at least our DMs are ready!
It's always interesting to me when I hear players speculate about how much better they expect convention play to be than the play they get down at the FLGS. I and other regular DMs in game stores and other venues often view convention play as our opportunity to actually play the game we enjoy running -- which means that a lot of the better DMs in the region are taking themselves out of the DM pool so they get to actually play a game every so often. As noted by other posters, this leaves the convention in a bit of a bind sometimes; they need DMs to run tables, but the best DMs don't want to spend the entire convention simply running more games, which means they need to cast a wider net. It doesn't surprise me at all, therefore, that convention DMs tend not to be as experienced or polished as FLGS DMs. Even more to the point, if a con is big enough to offer concrete perks for DMing (such as free or discounted badges, or at Origins/GenCon, shared hotel space), often you'll get people who are surprisingly indifferent to their own DM skill because they're not DMing to bring a great experience to a number of tables, but for the opportunity to experience the convention 'on the cheap'.
Because of these two factors, I always approach convention play with a 'caveat emptor' approach; I've had some great experiences at big conventions, but some of my worst have been there, too. It's not an automatic creme de la creme experience at a big con, even at cons where the organizers promise a 'premier' experience.
--
Pauper
It is frustrating, but there's not a lot one DM can do about a noisy room experience -- everybody wants to be heard, but the louder your table gets, the harder it is for other tables to hear, which just escalates the noise problem.
Con of the North had an interesting solution to this problem with their previous hotel -- they used to provide the Con with a bunch of actual guest rooms cleared out for use as activity rooms, since there wasn't really enough conference space to host the con proper. CotN used those single rooms as RPG rooms, neatly avoiding noise problems. Of course, Organized Play wasn't as big a thing in those days; these days, AL or PFS pretty much needs a huge ballroom to host all the events they want, even at a smaller regional con, and that leads to noise.
I'm not sure if I can say that our local cons seem better organized than this than to say that our cons seem organized, period. We use Warhorn to organize sessions, and since DMs sign up for the sessions they're going to run, they know well in advance what games they're running and thus need to prep.
Of course, this can lead to a different problem -- since the Warhorn organizing takes place outside the regular convention schedule, someone who doesn't know about Warhorn who shows up at a table based on the convention schedule might be in for a rude shock. But at least our DMs are ready!
It's always interesting to me when I hear players speculate about how much better they expect convention play to be than the play they get down at the FLGS. I and other regular DMs in game stores and other venues often view convention play as our opportunity to actually play the game we enjoy running -- which means that a lot of the better DMs in the region are taking themselves out of the DM pool so they get to actually play a game every so often. As noted by other posters, this leaves the convention in a bit of a bind sometimes; they need DMs to run tables, but the best DMs don't want to spend the entire convention simply running more games, which means they need to cast a wider net. It doesn't surprise me at all, therefore, that convention DMs tend not to be as experienced or polished as FLGS DMs. Even more to the point, if a con is big enough to offer concrete perks for DMing (such as free or discounted badges, or at Origins/GenCon, shared hotel space), often you'll get people who are surprisingly indifferent to their own DM skill because they're not DMing to bring a great experience to a number of tables, but for the opportunity to experience the convention 'on the cheap'.
Because of these two factors, I always approach convention play with a 'caveat emptor' approach; I've had some great experiences at big conventions, but some of my worst have been there, too. It's not an automatic creme de la creme experience at a big con, even at cons where the organizers promise a 'premier' experience.
--
Pauper
