It occours to me that back then, at Gaelcon at least, we used to offer several inducements to GMs, which also made it easier to get people to run games. At one stage, GMs got in free on the day they GMd. That didn't last long, as it was very expensive and we were struggling to make money. We also used to give GM teeshirts, and eventually just food, which ranged from a pack of sandwiches and a can down to a couple of packets of crisps, funds allowing. I'm not sure what the situation with that kind of thing is now, but it did help to get people to GM at the con.
I still think that at the root of the problem that exists today is numbers. The more people you have to run an event, the easier it is to pick good GMs, make sure they turn up on time and read the scenario in advance. If you're scrambling to get people to run the event at all then no matter how well organised you are you are, the more difficult it will be to ensure some level of quality. I would regularly tell people we had enough GMs when I knew they were no good or just unreliable. Conversely, I would badger good GMs into running games even if they thought they didn't want to. I don't think I ever played a single-table 'spec' event at an Irish con, but I did at cons in the UK. They were almost uniformly shit, which probably is partly what makes me think that moving to that system is a bad idea. The main reason though is that the 'shared experience' referred to is a very important part of the convention RPG experience. And I don't see how it's any more difficult to organise from the convention's point of view.
